


Wound Up

by jingle_jangle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, First Time, Gentle Sex, Getting to know you, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Rough Sex, Sex Pollen, Varying degrees of dubcon, friends to something, life on a spaceship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2019-06-28 09:56:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 42,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15704892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jingle_jangle/pseuds/jingle_jangle
Summary: Peter and Mr. Stark are struggling to repair a ship and get back to Earth after everyone else on Titan turns to dust. And when an accident doses Mr. Stark with sex pollen, their friendship is pushed to its limits.





	1. Prologue

_"It was the only way. We're in the endgame now."_

Peter watched in horror as Doctor Strange turned to dust and blew away in the winds of the alien planet -- _a freaking alien planet!_  -- just like Quill, just like the big bald gray dude, that biotech girl, the pretty girl with the antennae - god, why couldn't he remember their names? Not that it mattered. They were gone. They were all gone. Except one. For now.

"Mr. Stark!"

Stark whipped around, a look of fear and relief and disbelief plastered on his face. He came running to Peter.

"Pete?! Kid, you okay?" As soon as Mr. Stark was in arm's reach, his hands were all over him, his face, his back, his arms and torso, checking him up and down for injuries, making sure he was still solid.

"They just, they just disappeared, Mr. Stark, I don't know what happened? What happened? Where'd they go? Where'd the big guy go?" Oh, god, he was hyperventilating. He was babbling and hyperventilating and on an alien planet and people had just turned to dust and--

Stark wrapped his arms around Peter and held him close.

"It's okay," he said. "It's okay. Just stay with me, Pete. Stay with me." It was impossible to tell if he was trying to calm Peter or begging him to not disappear like the rest, but as they clung to each other in the setting sun, Peter began to feel a calmness, or at least something that passed for it, wash over him. His mind stopped humming over everything that had just happened and everything that could still happen and mercifully deposited him in the present, where he could feel the warmth of Mr. Stark's body, the scratch of his chin against his cheek, the...sticky hole in his shirt that crusted at the edges?

"Mr. Stark, are you...are you hurt?" Stark pulled away and began examining himself.

"Not too bad, anymore," he said. "I think that was part of Strange's deal. How are you?"

"I'm okay, I think." Peter looked around the area. They were surrounded by dirty rocks and crumbled buildings, not to mention the utterly trashed doughnut they'd landed in. "How are we going to get home?"

"I don't know," Stark said, "but that seems like a good place to start." Peter followed his gaze across the way to a lump coated in orange dust. He squinted at it an took a few steps closer until he saw the the lines of a ship, waiting for them. It was in bad shape. When they reached it, they'd realized that practically all the mechanics in the cockpit were fried, there were breaches in the hull, they were pretty sure the anti-gravity mechanism was broken, and the ship was low on power.

After they'd assessed the damage, they'd gone through the vessel, taking inventory. About the only thing it had going for it were some reasonably comfortable bunks, plenty of food and an odd collection of supplies and spare parts to pilfer as they tried to make repairs. One room in particular seemed likely to yield good bounty. Part bedroom, part cargo hold, it contained boxes and shelves full of wires and cables and power supplies, technology Peter had never seen, and an odd collection of prosthetic limbs.

He'd just pulled a box from a shelf and was gingerly poking through what looked like animatronic eyeballs, trying to imagine in what possible way they could be helpful, when the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He'd learned to trust his spidey sense, and when it said to jump, he didn't hesitate.

Peter went into an immediate backflip, higher than he'd done in awhile unassisted and when his feet touched the ceiling his hand reached down, snagging a large glass jar full of green powder just before it toppled off a high shelf as Mr. Stark was pulling a box down.

"Jesus!"

"Nope, just Peter."

Stark stared up at him, clearly startled by a suddenly upside-down teenager inches from his face.

"What the hell, kid?"

"This was about to fall on you, and it looked pretty heavy." Peter turned the jar over in his hands, and - _oh_ \- with one hand tightly holding the lid in place he released from the ceiling, flipping down to the floor and landing in an easy crouch. "And I don't think that would have been good."

One large piece of tape was carefully placed near the top with "SEX POLLEN" neatly written in large letters. A less neatly placed piece of tape beneath that read "DO NOT TOUCH." And beneath that, several strips were haphazardly stuck to the jar creating a big enough space for the angrily scrawled "I mean it, this is worth more than all you losers combined, STAY OUT!!"

 


	2. It ain't easy being green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because escaping an alien planet could never be easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that "varying degrees of dubcon" tag? This chapter marks the beginning of the first of two scenes that walk a very thin line between dubcon and noncon -- in this case, it's because Peter refuses to just let Mr. Stark die -- so take care when deciding if you want to read through or skip/skim around.

It took three ships to fix one.

Three ships and Mr. Stark, who had to learn all the ins and outs of three different types of alien tech, as they cannibalized the donut, Biotech Girl's ship and every spare part they could find on the most spaceworthy of them all. A scratched paint job on the hull dubbed it The Benatar, and Peter figured it had to belong to Quill, the Footloose Starlord guy.

It took a while before they were anywhere approaching ready to blast off.

Early on, Mr. Stark had busied himself with the guts of the ships and the basic mechanics of what made them fly-able, and Peter worked on patching holes in the hull. He'd only burned his hands and singed his hair once with the weird tools that probably weren't meant for that work, and honestly, he figured he'd have done about the same or worse if someone on Earth had handed him a welding kit. Thank goodness for spider-healing, right?

The computer systems, user interfaces and flight controls were another matter. Figuring out how parts and pieces fit and worked together was one thing, but the computers meant learning an entire language built around another language, neither of which Mr. Stark knew. And then doing it at least one more time. Fortunately, this was where Karen came in.

Peter hadn’t even realized she’d made the trip — he knew FRIDAY hadn’t — until she spoke up to offer tips on his welding. He’d been wearing the mask to protect his eyes, and he about jumped a mile and left a scorch mark on a perfectly fine section of the hull when her voice piped into his ears.

“Karen, what are you doing here? How are you here? Where have you been?!” The words tumbled out of Peter’s mouth before he could stop or even think about them, but Karen had answers for all.

“I’m trying to assist you in your repairs, Peter,” she’d said. “Mr. Stark designed this suit with a mechanism to pull my higher functions and miscellaneous data from the Stark servers into onboard storage in case of emergency. The download finished as we left orbit, but it took time to restore all my functions.”

  
“Huh,” was all Peter could say, but as soon as he told Mr. Stark, the man positively lit up with ideas.

“Did she finally wake up? Good for her!” If Peter didn’t know better, he could have swore he heard Karen offer a harumph and mutter something beneath her digital breath. It only took a little trial and error to patch Karen into the Benatar’s systems, and from there the AI could could learn how to talk to all the ships and make them play nicely together.

He even found a way to integrate her into the ship’s comms system, like the computer from Star Trek, so Peter didn’t have to wander around in the mask all the time. It was comforting, almost, the way speakers crackled to life whenever they called on her in a particular room. It seemed like things were looking up. Mr. Stark said it’d probably be another day before they could trust the ship in space.

And that would be why Peter was currently folded in half under one of the flight control consoles, straining his spider-sense enhanced eyes into a dark, tiny hole in part of the wall that jutted out and stretched the length of the cabin.

“See anything, kid?” Mr. Stark asked.

“No.”

“Damn.”

“Uh, Mr. Stark? I still don’t really understand what it is I’m looking for? Not that it matters too much because it’s like super dark in there.” Peter half-tried to worm his way out of the tight space before giving up and craning his neck to look up him.

“Somewhere between here,” Mr. Stark pointed where Peter had been looking, “and here,” he pointed about six feet to the opposite side of the cabin, “is what I hope is just a frayed wire. Because a frayed wire we can fix pretty easily. Replacing an entire conduit…it’s more work. And I don’t really want to rip out a wall to go looking for a centimeter of whatever passes for copper on this old boat.”

“Oh. Hey, what about the eyes?” Peter said.

“The eyes?”

“In that store-room, there’s a box of fake eyes, but they look electronic. Like cameras? Maybe we can wire one up to a screen somehow and send it through. Some of them were pretty small.”

Mr. Stark looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding his head.

“Yeah. Yeah, that might work.” Peter smiled and had just begun to wriggle out from under the console again when Mr. Stark held out a hand. “Nope, stay there. I’ll get it. I can’t watch you pretzel yourself in and out of that space more than once.”

Peter grinned and slid back to his original position. He stared down the hole one more time, thinking surely if he just looked a little harder he could find what Mr. Stark wanted. But all he got for his trouble was mild headache from all the squinting. Finally, he gave up. But he didn’t move. He’d have to be down there when Mr. Stark got back with an eye, after all.

There was a rumble beneath him. Light at first, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed it without his spidey sense. Like the ship was humming at him. There was something almost comforting about it, until the gentle thrum became a more serious vibration and then an increasingly violent shake. By the time Peter was free from the underside of the console, the entire cabin was rocking. Peter was thrown backward. He would have hit the floor hard if he hadn’t reached for a wall panel and stuck to it with everything he had.

“Mr. Stark!” he yelled. “Something’s happening up here!” There was no answer. “Karen, what’s happening?!”

“It appears there is some sort of seismic event beneath us, Peter.”

Peter pulled himself forward until he could see out the front window. The ground was shaking. Cracks started to form and if the jolt of energy working its way down his spine was any indication, a sinkhole was probably about to open up.

“Mr. Stark!” Still no answer. “Okay,” Peter said to himself. “Okay.” He looked at the console. It was just a couple days ago when he’d asked Mr. Stark if he really thought he could fly this thing. After bragging about his quinjet and Iron Man suit skills, he’d said yes and given Peter a rundown of the mechanics. But he’d talked so fast, and Peter could barely even drive a car.

  
There was a loud boom, and the back half of the ship tilted dangerously as the ground began to give way underneath. Peter pushed frantically at the button he was pretty sure was for repulsors, and for a moment, things were stable again as the ship’s back end rose to be level with its front. The relief was short lived. The sinkhole Peter was afraid of opened up, and the little ship groaned and whined before beginning a free fall.

“SHIT!” ( _"Language, Peter,"_ Aunt May said in the back of his head, but he pushed the the thought away.) “Okay, thrusters. Thrusters…” his eyes scanned over the controls “Karen, which ones are the thrusters?!” A light blinked next to a green button. Peter pushed it and prayed. There was a rumble deep in the ship as the thrusters roared to life, but the ship was uneven, tilted about 20 degrees, and instead of going up, it careened off at an angle, straight for the far wall and lip of the forming hole.

Peter threw himself into the pilot’s chair, adjusting power levels and trying to steer his way out of this mess. The ship lurched, tilted and rocked as his attempts to gain altitude and find steady ground only resulted in a series of over-corrections that might have reminded him of the old roller coasters his dad used to take him on if he weren’t worried about slamming into everything.

In his peripheral vision he saw a a light appear on one of the displays.

“I’ve located a spot that appears to be stable and marked it’s location on-”

“I can’t really look at it right now, Karen!” Peter yelled. He gripped the controls so hard his knuckles hurt and he could feel the burn all the way in his biceps as his tilt to avoid the donut’s wreckage almost turned into a roll.

“Point the nose 45 degrees to the left,” Karen said. Peter did as he was told. Well, 45 degrees, 40 degrees, he couldn’t really measure it, but once he was turned, he saw what she had found. A small patch of land nestled among some cliffs. There was only one problem now.

“Uh….Karen, how do I slow down?!”

“Reverse your thrusters, Peter.” Peter’s eyes danced from the controls to the window and back — Aunt May always said never to take your eyes off the road — until he finally saw the button he needed and jabbed it. It wasn’t the gentlest of stops, but it worked. Certainly better than when he disengaged the repulsors too quickly and sent the ship back to the ground with a thud that made him wince. As the dust began to settle, Peter caught his breath and waited for his heart to slow from the manic drumbeat that had been pounding in his chest. A sense of calm had just started to come over him when he looked behind him and realized he was still alone.

“Mr Stark?!” He bolted out of the pilot’s chair and ran through the ship, skidding to a halt at the door to the storage room. Through the window, he could just barely see Mr. Stark on the floor, his body curled around itself as he clutched at his midsection in a haze of green dust. “Mr. Stark!”

“Peter, wait!” He had just laid his hand on the door’s lever when Karen’s voice echoed down the hallway. “My sensors are picking up a contaminant.”

“Yeah, no shit!” Peter yelled, “And Mr. Stark’s in there!”

“If you’ll give me a moment to activate the ship’s environmental controls,” Karen said, and if Peter didn’t know better, he’d say she sounded a little testy with him, “I can alleviate most of the danger.”

“Fine, fine, just do it,” Peter said, none too patiently, either. He watched through the window as white bursts of something shot out of vents in the ceiling and then were sucked up, along with most of the airborne powder. Peter’s hand was on the door when Karen spoke up again.

“You might want to wear the Iron Spider suit,” she said. He looked into the room again. The air was clear, but there was still a lot of that powder on the floor, and Mr Stark was covered in it. If he shook his head, it would probably fly in the air like baby powder.

“Okay, yeah,” he agreed and ran to the room that held his new suit and the bits that were left of the latest Iron Man nanotech. His suit was wide open, it kind of reminded him of the foil from those Cadbury eggs at Easter. Peter stepped in and as soon as his body was aligned with the suit, it enveloped him. Now that he wasn’t free-falling off an alien craft, certain he was going to splat onto the pavement beneath, he found the experience a little scary. Like being shut inside a tomb when the mask spread into place. But soon the darkness was replaced with light. He could see the room with crystal clear vision and his heads-up display showed all kinds of information that even his super-powered eyes would miss. He’d had the suit for two days, and it already felt like a second skin.

Once Karen assured him that all the suit’s functions were working properly and would protect from the powder, he bolted back to the supply room.

“Mr. Stark!” he threw the door open, just as Mr. Stark looked up at him in a panic.

“Pete, don’t come in here!”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Karen said none of this stuff can get through the suit.” He could still here Mr. Stark protesting as he walked in and shut the door. “What even is this, any-” his foot crunched on a piece of glass. He was fine, thanks to the suit, but when he looked down, a neon light outlined the shards, magnified them in his periphery and drew a line from the shards to a broken jar. It was the one before. Most of the tape had torn with the glass, but he could still make out the EX POL of SEX POLLEN. As Peter approached, he could see the bulge in Mr Stark’s pants that he was trying to cover as he lay writhing on the floor. “Okay,” he said as he approached his mentor. “It’s okay.”

“Really not,” Mr. Stark grunted. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

“Why, because you got a hard-on?” Peter said. He kneeled next to Mr. Stark and grabbed his shoulder. “Trust me, I get like three a day, it’s no big deal.”

Mr. Stark rubbed at his face and through his hair, and indeed plumes of the green powder went everywhere. “Gotta get this stuff off,” he said. “It’s making me —” the last word was swallowed in a groan as he rolled over and tried to rise, only to pause on all fours, shaking.

“All right, all right,” Peter said in a tone he hoped was reassuring. “I got you.” He curved his arm around Mr. Stark’s waist and pulled him to his feet, letting the other man’s arm dangle across his shoulders. Fortunately, the ship had a couple different washroom-looking things and one was connected to this room. Of course, half carrying, half dragging a nearly delirious superhero with a raging boner to the other end of the room felt like trekking through a hangar bay on a military base, but eventually they made it and Peter shoved Mr. Stark into a small tiled enclosure.

“Karen, this is a shower, right?!”

“More or less.”

“I don’t want to know what that means,” Peter said as he twisted a knob. Water came raining down from above. Mr. Stark stood there, leaning aimlessly against the wall as the water soaked into his clothes. One hand clenched repeatedly into a fist. This wasn’t working. Peter took a breath and climbed into the shower. Jesus, it sounded like being under a tin roof in a monsoon in the suit, but he pushed the thought away and started running his fingers through Mr. Stark’s hair and across his clothes. The powder turned into green rivers that streamed across the both of them, and Peter couldn’t help but be reminded of that old Wizard of Oz sequel with the mechanical man who cried emerald tears. The thought didn’t stay with him long, as Mr. Stark began to come around. He breathed deeply and tilted his head up, only to come back sputtering on the water.

“Hey, are you okay?” Peter asked as he patted him on the back. Mr. Stark whirled around as best he could in the cramped enclosure and stared wide-eyed at Peter. His eyes ticked downward to his own groin, completely unfazed by the chilly water, before shooting back up, confusion all over his face. “It’s okay,” Peter said. “It’s okay, you just got hit with a dose of space Viagra or something.” Peter felt like he was yelling, but the water was so loud. “Can you take it from here?” Mr. Stark nodded before squeezing his eyes shut and leaning into the wall. Peter squeezed his shoulder before stepping out of the shower space and leaving Mr. Stark to his business.

Dry cloths were on a shelf near the shower. They were more like hand towels than bath towels, but Peter grabbed one and hurried out of the washroom. The water wiped easily off the suit, and by the time he was back in the storage room, he was completely dry.

“You there, Karen?” he asked.

“Yes, Peter.”

He looked around the room. Broken glass and the green powder still clung to the floor.

“What do we do now?”

“There is an airtight containment unit in the medical bay,” Karen said. “Perhaps it could hold the leftover pollen.”

Peter nodded and dragged his towel across the floor. The loose powder stuck to it, and once the sensors in his suit confirmed he had it all, he flipped the towel and laid the broken glass on top of it before carrying the bundle away and depositing it safely in the container. They were calling it a med lab, but that might have been too much credit. There was a hard metal table, the container, which had sensors that ran to one of two computers at desks with chairs, and what looked sort of like a microscope, centrifuge and a few chemistry supplies. A handful of plants were growing in the corner near a cot.

Crammed haphazardly in drawers and cabinets were bandages, creams and foams that would probably have to go under the scope to be identified. The ship’s life support systems were also here, which Mr. Stark thought was weird — they should be with the engineering tech, he’d grumbled — but it made a certain sense to Peter. This was the room for all the stuff that could keep you alive.  
  
Peter stepped out of his iron suit and sank into a desk chair, taking a moment to relax. Catch his breath after the earthquake sinkhole thing and the loose pollen.

_Sex pollen._

He didn’t even want to think about who of the people he’d met would have brought it aboard, let alone why. But he couldn’t get the vision out of his head, peering through the door’s window at all of it in the air, and on the floor and covering Mr. Stark. Jesus, how much of it could he have breathed in? He looked at the containment unit, and his eyes were drawn to a red smear on a jagged edge of the jar. Blood. Peter hadn’t noticed any injuries, but he was pretty distracted. And he was pretty sure Mr. Stark’s mind was on other things than a wayward cut. But if any of that got into his blood stream?

“Karen, are there any files about that stuff on the ship’s computer?” Karen was silent for a moment.

“I’ve found one correspondence,” she said. “I’ll display it on your screen.”

Peter tugged at the gloves of his new suit — his old new suit, he corrected — until they released from under his web shooters and leaned closer to the monitor. The first file was a letter.

> Rocket,  
>  Here’s your sex pollen. I lost half my decoys and my good eye getting out of the Grandmaster's compound, so consider my debt paid. I didn’t get a full download on the specs being that I only had the ONE EYE and pair of sentries moving in (don’t figure YOU’D know anything about my missing box of spares).
> 
> Be careful with this stuff. It sounds like fun and games, but I’ve heard stories. And don’t count on ME rushing in to save your tail if things go bad with the Grandmaster OR the pollen.  
>  — G.

Well. All of that sounded terrifying. Peter selected the attached file next.

The first few screens contained molecular models of everything that went into the powdery pollen, and Peter made a mental note to come back to that later. He was pretty sure he recognized a few formations. Finally, he found text. Like many Earth drugs, it seemed the pollen was originally intended to be used to correct medical ailments. Hearts, lungs, kidneys. But it wasn’t long before its “other” qualities were discovered.

Peter scowled at the screen. He’d expected the document to just stop midsentence somewhere, but instead there were missing letters, words, even whole paragraphs seemingly at random. Like he was reading a heavily redacted report. There was something about brain chemistry and mental bonds that he couldn’t parse just then, and his eyes were beginning to blur until he got to the final page.

> **WARNING**  
>  Not intended … single-use … U… without partner … FATAL. ...

Peter blanched as he kept reading, piecing the warning together as best he could. Shit. He wasn’t sure what counted as overexposure, but he was pretty sure the scene in that storage room exceeded it tenfold. There was more content, but he’d read enough, and for a moment it was like his body moved on autopilot, rising from the chair and racing through the ship. He got to the storage room, and was staring through the door’s window at Mr. Stark before his brain caught up.

He was on the floor, his back against the wall and knees pulled up to his chest. Peter pulled the door open, and Mr. Stark’s eyes shot up.

“Uh-uh,” he said. “You need to get out of here right now.”

“No no no,” Peter said. “It’s okay, I know what’s happening-”

“No, you don’t-”

“I can fix this!”

“GET OUT!” Mr. Stark snarled at him through a grimace as he rose painfully to his feet. He kept one hand strategically placed, hiding the erection Peter knew was still there. “Sorry, kid,” he continued. His voice was gentler but Peter didn’t need super-hearing to catch the air of panic beneath it. “I’m not myself right now.”

“I know,” Peter said. “But, listen, I can help-”

“No-”

“But you’ll die!” Peter yelled.

“That’s okay. It’s okay. Really.” Peter didn’t know what sort of reaction he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t for Mr. Stark to lean against a shelf, barely able to stay upright and advocating for his own, agonizing death by sex pollen.

“No, sir,” Peter said, his voice breaking at even the thought of it. “It’s not okay.” Peter cautiously approached and laid a hand on his still damp shoulder. Mr. Stark whirled around at him, his eyes wild and almost angry.

“God, Pete, what are you still doing in here, I said to get out!” He pushed and he pulled and he dragged, forcing Peter toward the door, completely ignoring all of Peter’s protestations. They were almost there when Peter realized he couldn’t let it happen. If Mr. Stark threw him out and locked the door, he’d probably die before Peter could force his way back in.

Peter twisted his body, used the strength he swore he’d never use against a friend, and shoved. Mr. Stark stumbled backward, his back hit the wall, and before he could move, Peter shot three bursts of webbing, sticking Mr. Stark’s hands and one leg to the wall. The adrenaline coursing through Peter’s veins turned his legs to jelly, and he lowered himself to the floor, desperately trying to catch his own breath. He just needed to think. He hadn’t given much thought to anything as he tore out of the med bay except saving Mr. Stark’s life, and he certainly hadn’t given more than the most basic of thought for how he would do it. And now that he was here? He was nervous.

He could feel his heart pounding and hear his shallow breaths, and, oh god, he was starting to panic. And he wasn’t alone. Mr. Stark had grown even more incoherent, but the general theme was still recognizable. _Just leave me here to die, thanks_. Peter could taste the adrenaline now, and he squeezed his eyes shut, and held his breath.

That was it.

Peter rose to his feet and marched across the room to Mr. Stark.

“Just go, Pete,” he pleaded. “It’s okay, just get out of here. Go-”

Peter pressed his lips against Mr. Stark’s, held his face in his hands, and did his best to act like it wasn’t just the second non-family kiss of his life. He must have done something right, because he could feel Mr. Stark’s jaw relax. Peter moved on instinct, sliding his lips away until they were cheek-to-cheek.

“I need you,” he whispered.

“Peter-” Mr. Stark’s voice was just as quiet and calmer than he’d heard it since the sinkhole.

“I need you to get me home,” Peter continued. “I gotta get back to May and Ned and MJ, I gotta know they’re okay, and I can’t do that without you. Even if I could fix this ship and get into space, I wouldn’t know what direction to point it when I got there.” Peter’s hand traveled down Mr. Stark’s body, stopping once at his hip before sliding to the front and caressing him through his pants.

Mr. Stark let out a shuddering, shivering groan. He turned his face to look at Peter, his eyes glassy and unfocused. Peter lightly kissed the corner of his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered before dropping to his knees.


	3. The First Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you to all my lovely commenters, bookmarkers and kudosers. It really makes my day to log in and see feedback from so many people. This chapter marks the end of my backlog, but the next is a little more than half done. Updates may not be daily, but I'm hoping to be finished by next weekend.

Peter’s first kiss was in a dark corner at the end of a hallway outside the library of a school he didn’t attend. It was another academic decathlon competition, and he wasn’t ready. He’d spent the whole night and every night for the week leading up to it out as Spider-Man, and he hadn’t studied, he hadn’t practiced, his brain was mixing up Hydrogen and Helium on the periodic table, and everything was going to be horrible, and it would all be his fault and and and…

And that was when Michelle put her hand on his chest and pushed him into the corner, lifted herself up onto her toes and planted a kiss directly on his lips. He could still feel the way her body pressed against his. The way her tongue swiped across his lips until they parted enough for her to sneak in, and every thought that had been racing through his head silenced.

She pulled away.

“How ya doin’ Pete?” She’d asked.

“I’m, uh, I’m…I’m okay,” he said.

“Yes, you are,” Michelle — MJ, if they were going to be kissing in dark hallways, he could probably call her MJ — said. “And you are also the smartest guy in this whole building. So, get it together, and let’s go win this thing.”

She started to walk away, and Peter stood there, dumbfounded for a moment before chasing after her.

“Hey, Mich…M..MJ, hey,” he caught up and laid a hand gently on her wrist. She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t stop walking either. “After this, you maybe wanna, I dunno get a sandwich or something?” She stopped then, and turned to him with a smile that was also sort of a laugh.

“Slow your roll, Tiger,” she said. “You’re not exactly my type.” She looked him up and down, and Peter got the distinct impression he was being judged. “You’re cute though,” she said and squeezed his hand. “Now come on.”

That day seemed so long ago, and while it may have prepared him to repeat it from the other perspective, and maybe even gave him the confidence in the moment to rub his hands over Mr. Stark’s body, now he was on his knees, a full-grown man’s junk directly in his face, and he was just a little bit terrified. It’s not like he didn’t know about blow jobs. He’d seen his fair share of porn, and fantasized about it, and even woken up from a particularly confusing dream, soaked in sweat and mess with Flash’s name on his lips, but that was different. Wasn’t it?

Peter rose up until his head was closer to Mr. Stark’s belly. He lifted the hem of his shirt just enough to preoccupy himself by lightly kissing the newly exposed flesh while his hands tugged at the waistband of Mr. Stark’s jogging pants. They came down easily, and Mr. Stark shivered as they stopped at his knees.

Peter’s kisses traveled south, and god his mouth was so dry. _It’s like the fucking Sahara in there_ , he thought to himself as he brought his forehead to rest at Mr. Stark’s hip. Could he even do this?

He had to do this.

He swirled his tongue around his mouth, thought of food and kisses and all the things he wanted to do and have done to him, and when he reached Mr. Stark’s groin and felt him hot and hard against the side of his face, he was ready.

His kiss at the base of Mr. Stark’s shaft was wet and sloppy, but it produced a flinch and a gasp that emboldened him as he trailed his tongue alongside his cock, and Peter didn’t even have to think when he reached the tip, circled around and slid it past his lips.

God. God, he didn’t know what sort of mutant asparagus monster he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this. It was just flesh, barely different from the times he’d buried his face in his arm to stop from crying out in front of a computer screen while May watched TV in the other room. Except it was better. Firmer. The weight of it on his tongue was a comfort, and if he moved his head, the way it rubbed along the ridges on the roof of his mouth sent tingles down Peter’s spine. When he needed air, he let his mouth travel back down Mr. Stark’s cock, peppering light kisses until he reached the base again, ducking his head around and softly licking between his legs.

Mr. Stark’s breaths were shallow and raspy, and when Peter took as much of him as he could, let his hand cover the rest of the distance and pulled away with just the right amount of suction, Mr. Stark let out a choked moan that lived somewhere between revelry and revulsion. Peter looked up at him. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut. His jaw jutted out and Peter could see just a bit of his bottom lip clenched between his teeth before he let his mouth fall open. His chest heaved with gasps that were now deep but strained, and Peter almost missed the quiet _fuck_  that escaped his lips before drawing another whining breath.

And then Mr. Stark began to move. It was just a light sway at first, then a gentle rocking of his hips. Peter stilled and let him control the motion and the speed, enjoying the sensation as he slid in and out. It was almost peaceful at first. Then his pace quickened as his movements became thrusts, pushing farther into Peter’s mouth. Peter breathed forcefully through his nose.

_Too fast. Too deep. Too much._

He could feel himself begin to choke and gag and panic. He placed his hands on Mr. Stark’s hips and pushed, forcing him away and holding him firmly against the wall. He squirmed for just a moment before realizing the futility of it. Peter could hear his breaths, heavy with need.

Peter closed his eyes and swirled his tongue around his mouth again. As his mouth began to water, he curled his tongue, creating a well for the liquid. With his hands still holding Mr. Stark in place, he leaned back and opened just enough to take Mr. Stark’s tip, dipping it in the well, rolling his tongue over it until it was awash with slick, and finally going down, slowly taking more in until he could just barely feel it near the back of his throat.

Mr. Stark’s hips stayed still, but Peter could feel it as his hands strained at the webbing, trying desperately to break free, maybe to grab his hair or rest a hand at his neck or cup his cheek. Peter could feel the effort behind his movements, and something inside him twitched.

He was barely aware of swallowing. It was almost an involuntary action, but the movement of his throat was all it took for Mr. Stark to spill over the edge with a moan and shudder.

God, there was so much it. Thick and creamy, some of it shot down his throat, some coated the roof of his mouth and his tongue and dribbled down his chin as he pulled away. For a moment he didn’t know what to do, like his brain refused to fire. And then all his thoughts came at once.

_Spit or swallow? Spit or swallow? Oh, god, I’m going to be sick. Spit or swallow? Don’t think about it. Don’t think, just do. I can’t stop thinking. What is that taste? Spit or swallow?! DO SOMETHING._

Peter closed his eyes, thought of anything else, and gulped. His mouth was clear. He swiped a hand across his chin, then smeared the mess across the metal floor and leaned his head against the wall, next to Mr. Stark’s legs, taking deep breaths of clear, clean air as he tried to calm his roiling stomach. As his heartbeat slowed, he realized it wasn’t so much the taste of it, really. Not even the texture was bad. It was just the idea of it. Something from someone else’s body going into his.

_Get over it_ , Peter, he thought. _That’s pretty much all kissing and sex is, trading fluids._

Somehow, admonishing himself cleared his mind, brought his world back into focus and calmed his nerves and stomach. Then he remembered he wasn’t alone. Slowly, Peter rose to his feet. He caught Mr. Stark’s waistband as he did, pulling it up with him, and trying very hard not to look as he put Mr. Stark back together.

Mr. Stark’s face was turned away, his eyes squeezed shut and only the rise and fall of his chest giving any indication that he was even still alive. Peter pulled at the webbing surrounding Mr. Stark’s leg, and then went to work freeing his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again as the last of it came loose and the larger man collapsed into his arms. His eyes eased open. They were exhausted but clear and free of whatever agony he’d been feeling since the ground opened up beneath them.

“Thank you,” he said just before his whole body went limp.


	4. Before The Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to fight the sex pollen isn't really a good idea.

_They all stood around him. Ned, Michelle and Flash. Ned’s jaw was practically on the floor before he spoke._

_“Dude! You gave Iron Man a blow job? What was it like? Was he in the suit? Did like a panel pop open so it could come out…”_

_“Way to go, Penis Parker…”_

_“Bold move…”_

_“Were YOU in your suit? Like, could your suits merge or something like, like, like suit porn?…”_

_They all kept talking over each other but Peter shrank back just a bit with every excited response and question. They were surrounding him. Facing him, like part of an inner circle. They couldn’t see the others on the outer edge. Aunt May looked like she could cry, a ‘what did you do?’ silently forming on her lips. The Avengers were there. Captain America stood with arms crossed and a disapproving stare seething beneath his mask. Hawkeye’s fingers twitched, like he wanted to draw an arrow and fire it straight at him. The rest refused to look at him, and their silence began to deafen his friends. Mute them as the heroes grew taller, overshadowing them and swallowing him up…_

Peter breathed and opened his eyes. He was in his room. Well, not HIS room but the room he’d picked on the ship. Posters hung haphazardly and off kilter on the walls, little bits of technology that looked like games were strewn here and there, and the temperature was about 10 degrees higher than the rest of the ship. Just a touch humid. It screamed teenager, and as soon as he stepped into it, he felt warm and safe, like he were wrapped up in a cocoon.

He shook the cobwebs of his dream away and stood up.

“Karen, is Mr. Stark up yet?”

“Yes, Peter, he’s making repairs in the flight cabin.”

“Did he eat?”

“No.”

Peter yawned and stepped into his suit, pressing the emblem until it tightened snugly around his body. Still a little bleary eyed, he walked to the med bay, plucked a fruit from one of the plants and carried it to the galley. Normally, he wouldn’t just pick alien things off an alien ship to put in his mouth, but three images of the fruit at varying stages of development were taped to the wall in the rudimentary kitchen under the labels “NOT RIPE” “RIPE” and “BAD,” and he’d been curious about it ever since. He didn’t hesitate to pull down a metal pot, fill it with water and leave it over a small flame as he rummaged through cabinets.

This was the routine they’d fallen into. Mr. Stark managed most the repairs, tossing assignments to Peter as he saw fit, and Peter handled food, supplies, and whatever else needed done. At first, all of their meals came from foil packets and didn’t seem to be much more than glorified energy bars. But as he grew more comfortable with the surroundings — a strange thought, to be sure — Peter began to explore more. That was how he found the canister of grains that seemed to behave sort of like oatmeal. He’d tried it a few times on his own, and it didn’t seem to be doing anything negative, so with the ripe fruit in hand, Peter decided to get creative.

While the faux-meal boiled, he grabbed a knife and sliced into the fruit. It’s pale green exterior with a few ruddy splotches couldn’t have prepared him for the vibrant purple flesh and thick syrup that lurked beneath. Peter tossed a piece into his mouth and immediately smiled. It tasted kind of like a cross between an orange and a grape. Very sweet and a perfect complement to the bland cereal.

The fauxmeal didn’t take long to cook, and soon Peter was ladling it into two bowls and topping it with strips of the fruit crossed over each other like an asterisk. Peter smiled at his creation as he dunked a spoon each bowl and headed for the flight cabin. The walk wasn’t very long, and he could hear the banging and clanging of metal almost as soon as he stepped out of the galley.

Peter’s toes tingled with each step. When he rounded the corner into the cabin, he found Mr. Stark on the floor, ripping panels off the wall, tossing them to the other end of the room and examining the wires and cables that ran beneath. He’d changed clothes, probably raiding Star Lord’s closet for a what looked like blue jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with writing in a language he couldn’t parse. Peter watched as Mr. Stark’s hands ran over the cables that were visible. Finding no damage, he laid down on his side, reaching his hands through the mass of wires to feel around in the depths of the panel.

Peter coughed.

“Yeah?” Mr. Stark grunted. He’d pushed himself as far against the wall as he could until he was shoulder-deep into the ship.

“I, uh, I made breakfast,” Peter stammered. The tingling in his toes began to radiate up his calves.

“That’s great, kid, just leave it over there.” Mr. Stark pulled his arm free and sat up, pointing over his shoulder to an empty spot near the pilot’s chair. Without standing up, he shifted his body to the next section of wall panel. It looked like some of them just popped out, but this one had a screw, and he used a small scrap of metal to work it loose. Peter set the bowl down and watched as he turned, slipped and scratched the panel before starting again.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Trying to find that bad wire. Or, what I hope is the bad wire.”

Peter cocked his head.

“I thought we were going to use the eyes?”

“Yeah, well, assuming it would even work, by the time we found one that would fit, scrounged up the rest of the supplies we needed and got everything rigged up for that, I could have done this-” he dropped the loose screw in a small dish and pulled off the panel, “a half dozen times. So I figured why wait. Need to get you home, after all.”

Peter swallowed as his words were repeated back to him. He almost asked Mr. Stark if he remembered the previous night, but stopped short. If he wanted to talk about it, he would, Peter figured. And if he didn’t remember it, well, it would be that much easier to carry on as if it hadn’t happened.

“Can I help?” he asked, finally.

“Nah, I got it,” Mr. Stark said. “If you want to do something, you can check the life support systems.”

“I did that yesterday-”

“Well then do it again! The last thing we want is to break atmosphere, enter the vacuum of space and then find out something got missed and there’s no air to breathe.” His voice was just short of a yell. Not really angry, but there was something behind it that made Peter take a step back and stand in silence until he could trust his voice.

“O-okay,” he finally said. “I’ll be in the med bay.”

Peter turned and left the flight cabin. It wasn’t a long distance, but by the time he’d reached the med bay, he was breathing heavily. The bowl in his hand felt like it weighed 30 pounds, and there was a hot stinging behind his eyes. He set the bowl down and wrapped his arms around himself, trying not to give in to the tremble that was threatening to overtake him.

Mr. Stark was mad at him. He wouldn’t even look at him through that whole exchange. Peter reached a hand out and leaned against the table. He wanted to collapse. What had he done? How did he let this happen? His breath shook — hell, everything shook — as he closed his eyes replayed the other day in his mind, looking for anything he could have done differently.

But there wasn’t. He knew there wasn’t. Deep down, Mr. Stark had to know there wasn’t. Peter latched on to that feeling. Held it tight until he could pull himself together and stand steady at his full height. He took a deep breath, held it and slowly exhaled, doing his best to let all the nervous energy and fear follow his breath out of his body. When his lungs were empty, he opened his eyes. This time, when he drew breath, the room came into crystal clear focus. He could see everything, right down to flecks on the wall of dried something that might have been blood long-since shed after a battle of some sort or another.

He called it his Spider Sight. It was different from his general enhanced eyesight. When it first started happening, it was entirely at random and caused a sensory overload that sent him fleeing to dark rooms or pulling a hat down over his eyes. But as he gained more control of his power, and everything didn’t seem quite so dialed up, he realized he could control it, if the circumstances were right. Great for investigating, not so good for battle. He hadn’t used it much since Mr. Stark gave him the suit. Its onboard features, plus Karen, rarely let him miss anything when he was working.

But he used it now to find a sense of calm. To see the big picture and zero in on some small part of it until his worries receded to the back of his mind. One more deep breath and his vision returned to normal.

Okay. Check life support. He could do that. Carefully, he looked over all the oxygen tanks, valves, tubes and the system that, near as he could tell, scrubbed carbon dioxide out of the air and recycled what was left. Everything looked fine. Peter even got down on his hands and knees and peered into the darkness. That was when he found it. One lone cable that hung precariously from its connector. Peter pushed the ends tightly together and secured it with a bit of webbing.

It should hold, and they should be more than fine. Peter looked around the room, wondering what else he could do. He didn’t want to go back to Mr. Stark. (And Mr. Stark probably didn’t want to see him, a small voice inside him said.) His eyes landed on the container holding the pollen remnants. The broken jar had become overrun with a green, almost mold-like substance that was its thickest where Mr. Stark’s bloody print had been. Peter gulped and returned to one of the small computer stations.

“Karen, can you pull up that file on the… on the sex pollen?” he asked.

“I sure can, Peter,” she said. “And I have good news!”

“Yeah? Bout time someone did. What’s up?”

“I was able to retrieve more information from the correspondence we found. Most of the document about the pollen was downloaded, but only a fraction of it was decompressed. I’ve since recovered and filled in the rest.”

“Pull it up,” Peter said. He wanted to believe Mr. Stark was out of the woods. Pissed, but safe. But he couldn’t look at the containment unit and feel any measure of comfort.

Peter hated being right.

His settled into his chair and took his time reading the document, absently spooning cereal into his mouth as he went. By the time he reached the end, the last bite of food had grown cold and it landed with a sick feeling in his stomach. Nothing about this sounded good. Slowly he rose and stepped toward the containment unit, where he could get down on its level and stare at the growing material.

“Karen, was there a scale or anything else that measured the weight of all this when we dumped it in?” Karen was silent for a moment, and Peter could imagine her sifting through all the ships’ data centers.

“Yes, Peter,” she finally said. “The container’s registry listed its new payload at 4.2 units yesterday.”

“And what’s it at now?”

“4.4”

Okay, so it really was growing. He could hypothesize that it was interacting with the blood on the jar, and maybe this is what happened when left untreated. It made him uneasy. For all the new information he’d gotten from the recovered file, there was still so much he didn’t know. He wanted to disregard all the thoughts swirling in his head. It was bad science, after all. The containment unit and Mr. Stark were different environments with different variables, right? He needed more data. He pushed himself back to his feet.

“Karen, do you have-” Peter stumbled, reaching for the table as all his senses screamed at him. The room was too bright, the metal too cold, the ship’s power too loud. He was surrounded by a threat he couldn’t identify. The door creaked open, and he spun around, raising his hand against the light as a shadowy figure stood in the doorway.

“Hey, Pete,” Mr. Stark said. Peter squeezed his eyes shut and forced his mind and body to calm down before opening them again to see Mr. Stark leaning against the door frame, watching him. “You all right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you just startled me is all.”

“Huh.” Mr. Stark clicked his tongue against his teeth before pushing off the door frame. His fingers ran lightly over the edge of the metal table as he entered the room. They danced briefly over a piece of fruit that wasn’t ripe as he approached Peter. He stopped at the containment unit and looked inside.

“Is this it?” he asked. He gripped the edge of the container so tightly that Peter could see the strain at his knuckles.

“Yeah,” Peter said. “That’s it. I think we should do a blood draw or something. I think I can tell what it looks like under a microscope and we should see if there’s any still in your system and if it’s gr-”

“It is,” Mr. Stark said. “I can feel it.” He was close enough now that Peter could feel the warmth radiating from him body. “Been fighting it all day.”

“Oh,” Peter said. It took a moment for Mr. Stark’s words to sink in. “Oh. I mean, we … I could … you know … if you need-”

Mr. Stark turned to face Peter, stepping forward until his back was against a wall. He leaned in close; his breath was hot against Peter’s ear and neck.

“I need more,” he whispered. His voice was low, almost a growl as a hand traveled down Peter’s side, cupped his ass and pulled him forward until their bodies pressed firmly together. For a moment, Peter was stunned into silence as Mr. Stark rubbed against him and the grip on his backside tightened.

“M…Mr. Stark,” Peter started. His voice tapered off into light breaths as Mr. Stark nipped up his neck, circled his tongue around the edge of his ear. A small squeak escaped his lips as one of Mr. Stark’s hands pressed the emblem on his suit, loosening the top in stark contrast to the tightening he felt in his groin. He could feel himself getting hard as Mr. Stark tugged at the sleeves, running his hands across Peter’s bare arms.

“You’re trembling, Pete,” he whispered. “Are you scared?” Peter was shaking, ever so slightly. He was covered in goose bumps, except for where the warmth of Mr. Stark’s hands on his skin burned them away. “Are you?”

“I don’t…” Peter was overcome with sensation. There was a part of him that wanted to touch. To be touched. To taste and feel and everything, and it warred with all that he thought he knew, freezing him. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t find words.

“You don’t what?” Mr. Stark said. There was an edge to his voice that Peter hadn’t heard since the ferry. He moved his whole body forward, pressing Peter against the wall so firmly that he could feel Mr. Stark’s hard-on, smell the borrowed aftershave — or what passed for it — and hear the pounding of his heart. “You take what you want, but I don’t get the same courtesy?” God, Peter was drowning in him.

“It’s not that-”

Mr. Stark crashed his mouth into his. Peter’s lips banged against his teeth, got caught in a bite that would have bruised if he were normal, and streaked across Mr. Stark’s cheek as he was pulled into a rough embrace. The top of the suit fell down, bunched around the cinched waist. Whatever chill Peter had been feeling evaporated in the warmth of Mr. Stark’s body.

“Karen,” he said between breaths as Mr. Stark’s hip pressed and rutted against his erection, “Could you … could you go offline for a little bit?” She didn’t speak, but the constant low hum and crackle in the speakers that signaled her presence in a room faded to nothing.

Mr. Stark kissed him again. Open-mouthed but with no less urgency. Peter could still taste the fruit from breakfast as Mr. Stark’s tongue stroked against his. His mouth traveled back to Peter’s neck. His teeth scraped lightly against his clavicle. Somehow, Mr. Stark had gotten an arm around Peter’s leg, hooked in the crook of his elbow and hoisted it up and around his body, creating more room to grind against Peter.

Peter’s eyes swam. His breath was short and shallow. Everything was so tight, and all he knew was that he had to get out of the suit. His hands went to his waist. He fumbled with the material, but his fingers refused to cooperate. He could barely stand it.

His leg was back on the floor. Mr. Stark pushed his hands away, grabbed the suit and tugged it down in one fluid motion, freeing Peter from the constricting fabric as it pooled at his feet.

He was naked. He was naked and hard and alone in a room with another person. He might have whimpered, he wasn’t sure, but Mr. Stark laid a hand on his chest and made a soft shushing sound, and Peter wondered if he could feel his heart pounding through his sternum.

Mr. Stark’s other hand traced down Peter’s side and squeezed his hip before wrapping around the base of his cock and stroking forward and back with gentle easy motions. His hands were rough and calloused in spots from years spent building things in the lab or in the field or in a cave. They told a story and Peter leaned into it with heavy breaths. It was so different. It was so different when it was somebody else.

And then it was gone. Peter’s eyes were closed, but he could hear the jingling of a belt buckle. The pull of a zipper. Mr. Stark shifted closer. His tip nudged Peter’s pelvis. Their shafts rubbed against each other, and when the ridges of their heads kissed, a shiver of pleasure went down Peter’s spine. Mr. Stark held both of them in his hand, stroking and tugging and guiding them together. Circling them around each other until Peter couldn’t hold back a moan.

Mr. Stark released them, ran his hands over Peter’s body and maneuvered him to the table. At first, Peter just leaned on it while Mr. Stark stood behind, arms wrapped around his torso, mouth leaving wet kisses across his shoulder blades and the nape of his neck. But then his hands went to Peter’s hips, pulling him backward until Peter’s top half had nowhere to go but down. The table wasn’t quite waist high, and with his ass in the air, Peter started to feel nervousness trying to return. But the metal was cool against his cheek. Mr. Stark was warm against his body, and when his cock slipped between Peter’s thighs, rubbing against his balls and underside with each push, and his hand reached around to grasp Peter again…nothing else seemed to matter.

He could feel Mr. Stark everywhere. Behind him, around him, in front of him. If it weren’t for the zipper and denim that hadn’t quite pulled down all the way lightly biting his backside with each push, Peter was sure he would have come before now, lost in a fantasy of his own making. But it kept him present and aching, and the sway of another body against his lit up parts of his brain that he didn’t even know existed. His legs tightened around Mr. Stark’s cock.

“Oh, god, Jesus, kid-” Mr. Stark pitched forward, his unoccupied hand hitting the table with a clang. His teeth were back at Peter’s shoulder. His neck. “Let me know before you pop,” he growled in Peter’s ear. Peter made a noise. He wasn’t sure it was a word. “Are you close?”

“Y..yeah…yes.” Peter said between each panting breath. “Yes.”

Mr. Stark shifted gears. Instead of stroking him, he enveloped Peter’s head in his palm, rubbing it around and tickling Peter’s shaft with the tips of his fingers.

It felt like Peter’s heart was in his throat. His heart, his lungs, his kidneys. Everything was up there, cutting off his air, making him light-headed like that one time he’d snuck past the operator to get on the biggest roller coaster in the city, and reached the top of the highest peak…

Peter cried out. He tried not to, but he couldn’t help it when his body tensed and his organs came crashing back down where they belonged. With memories of wind sweeping through his hair, he came in Mr. Stark’s hand.

Mr. Stark stepped back. He didn’t go far. Peter could still feel his presence behind him. He propped himself up on his elbows and went to rise, but a hand landed on his back, holding him in place. Pushing him back down. Mr. Stark leaned into him, using a knee to spread his legs.

Fingers still wet with Peter’s come traced a line back from his balls and between his cheeks, rubbing over a thousand nerve endings before pressing inside while Peter quivered beneath him. He could feel everything. Every push, every pull, every twist and thrust and new stretch. His movements were slow and deliberate, but forceful enough that Peter could feel his body trying to move forward while his skin tried to stick to the metal surface.

And just like that, he was empty. Mr. Stark was panting behind him. One hand was back at Peter’s hip. The other must have been guiding Mr. Stark’s cock across his backside, sliding between his seam. Peter’s eyelashes fluttered as Mr. Stark’s tip nuzzled against him, only to go wide as he pushed inside. Peter’s back arched. Mr. Stark’s hand was on his shoulder; his nails were short, but they dug into Peter’s skin.

Peter could tell that Mr. Stark tried to be slow. He tried to be gentle. But the pollen. It had to be the pollen pushing him harder and faster with little regard for anything else. It stung. It burned. Peter didn’t quite understand how something that felt so decadent a moment ago was so hurtful now. He reached between his legs, tried to grasp his own cock to trick his brain into fighting pain with pleasure, but he was still too sensitive. It was like being on fire.

He didn’t know what to do. He tried to focus on something else. The metal of the table. The fruit plant growing in the corner. Home. Anything. He was barely aware of reaching out behind him until Mr. Stark’s fingers threaded between his.

“You’re so tight,” he muttered between breaths. “It’s so good. You’re so good, god.” Peter focused on the words that spilled out of his mouth. On the feel of his hand and fingers and the thumb that ran gentle circles around his own. He never dropped Peter’s hand, even as his words faded into guttural moans and sharp breaths. And then it happened.

With barely any warning, Mr. Stark grunted and lurched forward, plunging deep into Peter as he came, shooting a spark that traveled through Peter's belly and up his body until it exploded in his brain. Peter felt everything and nothing as Mr. Stark dropped his hand, staggered back, and they both collapsed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for your comments, kudos and bookmarks! Next chapter: Peter and Tony actually have to deal with what's been happening instead of just reacting to it.


	5. Aftermath

Peter wrapped himself up in biggest, fluffiest towel he could find, lowered himself into a desk chair and pushed a button.

“Karen, are you there?” The speakers resumed their light crackle.

“Yes, Peter. What can I do for you?”

“Start a timer. I think the pollen is knocking Mr. Stark out, and I want to gauge how long he sleeps. Add about 20 minutes. And there’s stuff on board for a blood draw, right?”

“Yes, Peter.”

“Good, we should run some tests. See if there’s any pollen still there or if-” Peter’s voice trailed off. He thought maybe he could jump straight into science mode and move past the med bay. But he couldn’t think about what they needed to do without thinking about what they’d already done. “Karen, do you know what happened after you left?” he asked softly.

“I assume you and Mr. Stark engaged in sexual intercourse.”

“Geez, Karen, you don’t have to say it like that!”

“How else should I say it?”

“I…I dunno,” Peter said before lapsing into a silence.

“Are you all right?” Karen asked.

Peter looked up sharply.

“What?”

“Are you all right?” Karen repeated “After…” she paused, perhaps searching her database for a better euphemism and landing on a trailed off “you know…”

Peter never really understood how Karen and FRIDAY worked. He didn’t worry himself with the moral implications of whether they were just ones and zeroes programmed in interesting ways or if artificial intelligence had room for the beginnings of a soul, but in that moment — whether it was built in by Mr. Stark or born from something else entirely, Peter was grateful for the humanity that had found its way into his AI companion.

Peter breathed deeply before rising from the chair and flopping down in his bed — someone’s bed, he kept telling himself.

“I don’t know,” he said. He’d hoped with a hot shower he’d be able to forget the feeling left after … after everything. But the memory was still there. An unexpected byproduct of some very unexpected sex.

He’d just had sex.

Peter rubbed a hand across his face. Nothing was how he thought it would be. How could he have thought his first time would have been in a spaceship, on an alien world with the man who’d given him the very suit he’d picked up and wrapped around himself as he left the med bay?

Was he all right?

His stinging lip had stopped hurting before he’d made it through the ship, and the bruises on his neck had faded to nearly nothing by the time he was out of the shower. He ran his fingers lightly over the slight discoloration that remained. His first hickey, too. He smiled softly. Sure, absolutely none of it was how he expected, but if he closed his eyes, he could still feel lips and hands and breath on his skin. No one had ever really touched him like that before, and it didn’t take much compartmentalizing at all to relish the sensation.

It was just the other stuff.

“Maybe I can help,” Karen said. Peter snorted back a laugh. Sometimes Karen was funny.

“How could you possibly do that?” he asked.

“One of my subroutines is responsible for keeping a cache of emergency and predictive searches, so if we’re ever out of range of the servers — like now, for instance — you’ll have information available to you.”

“Emergency and predictive searches?”

“Yes,” Karen said. “Some are standard — like first aid, wilderness survival, and for some reason Mr. Stark thought you might need to know how to hotwire a car — but most are based on your own search history.”

“My own search…” Peter paused as he took her words in. “And which one of those is responsible for anything that would help with this?” He could feel his heart begin to quicken.

“Well, Peter, you were the one who googled ‘Am I gay if I have a sex dream about a guy?’”

“Oh, man,” Peter said as he rubbed at his eyes. “Does Mr. Stark know?” He couldn’t think of anything more embarrassing, especially given their current situation.

“No.”

“No?”

“Mr. Stark’s design allows for tracking of location, your vital signs and damage to the suit, but he implemented privacy protocols for the rest. Only accessible in the event of grave injury. And I suspect in that circumstance, a web search would be the least of his concerns.”

“Huh.” Peter said. “Yeah, that makes sense.” He knew he could count on Karen to drop a logic bomb when he was spiraling. “So, what kind of things do you have?”

“I have numerous files ranging from safety and hygiene to technique and accessories and if you-”

“Okay, okay,” Peter said. “I just…it can hurt less, right?”

“Yes, Peter,” she said. “I’ll send the relevant files to a tablet and disconnect it from the ship’s network. I also have a collection of related videos-”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Peter interrupted, leaping out of bed. “You have porn? Like, PORN, porn?”

“I suppose that’s one way of putting it.”

“Oh, god. Karen, delete the porn,” Peter said before pausing. “Wait.” His AI went trawling the internet for porn for him. It was kind of a sweet gesture. And who knew how long they’d be offworld. It could be educational. “Maybe…maybe don’t?”

“As you wish, Peter,” she said. “If it would make you more comfortable, I could copy it to the tablet and delete the originals from my system.”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” He walked back to the desk and picked up a blinking device. The screen displayed a fairly slow-moving status bar.

“How much stuff do you have?” he asked as the bar inched slowly to 0.5 percent.

“My files are quite extensive.”

“Huh. Do me a favor and lock it down once the transfer’s complete. Password DODN52180.”

“Sure thing,” Karen said. “What will you be doing?”

Peter looked over at his suit, crumpled on the floor. It was stained, reeked of sweat and sex, and needed washed something fierce, but he didn’t know where or how to do that here.

“I gotta find some clothes.”


	6. The Hand You're Dealt

Peter had been through every bunk in the ship, raiding closets and dressers for anything that might fit. He’d found a few pants that worked. Leather wasn’t really his style, and they were a little snug, but he could move, and it beat wandering the ship wrapped in a towel or a filthy suit.

Shirts were a different matter. One bunk that clearly belonged to the big gray guy had an abundance of pants that would never fit Peter in a million years but not a single shirt. And in most of the other wardrobes, tops were too tight in the shoulders and too big in the chest, and okay maybe it was vanity but he didn’t really want to wear the scoop-collar shirts that plunged down well past his neck.

Which left the closet Mr. Stark must have found his ensemble in. An array of graphic tees that somehow managed to look so familiar and super alien at the same time stared back at him. He reached to the back of wardrobe and pulled one out. It was white with a faded gray image of what looked kind of like a man with floppy ears crooning into a microphone taking up most of the left side.

He pulled it over his head and checked a mirror. Christ, he was swimming in it. He squeezed his eyes shut and leaned his forehead against the glass.

_What would May do?_

Peter opened his eyes, scrubbing away tears that hadn’t quite fallen. What would May do? She’d make it work. She had a way of doing that. Whether it was clothes that didn’t quite fit, a meal that needed stretched, or money for another backpack, she always found a way to make things work.

It took some creative folding and tucking and letting bits of the shirt hang over the waistband, but it wasn’t long before Peter could look in the mirror and see a hipster with a penchant for the 80s instead of a little boy parading around in a shirt two sizes too big.

It would do.

Speakers crackled to life.

“Mr. Stark is awake,” Karen said.

* * *

 

Peter approached the med bay cautiously. Mr Stark was sitting on the small cot, back against the wall, legs crossed and eyes closed. Peter had just barely stepped into the room when he spoke.

“Please go away.” His voice soft. Not quite pleading, but far from the commanding man-in-charge Peter had come to know.

“Where am I gonna go?” Peter lowered himself onto a chair opposite Mr. Stark, whose eyes opened just enough to squint at him before he pursed his lips and shook his head in annoyance. Yeah, well. Peter never was much for following instructions, and he expected Mr. Stark was the same. “It’s not your fault,” he continued. “It’s the pollen. It makes you need-”

Mr. Stark snorted and stretched his legs out over the side of the cot and leaned forward.

“You don’t get it, Parker,” he said. “I mean, yeah, yeah, ‘ _the pollen makes you have to fuck_ ’” he said almost mockingly. “But it’s more than that. I didn’t just need to. I w…” His words trailed off in a puff of air as he dropped his head to stare at the floor.

“You wanted to,” Peter finished. “You wanted me.” Mr. Stark raised his head and eyes just enough to look at him.

“How do you know that?”

“I did the reading,” Peter said with a smile as he nodded in the direction of the computer console. “And it’s really not your fault. If anything it’s mine. See, there’s a compound in the pollen, and after the first…um…encounter…it leaves like a chemical imprint on the brain until it’s all out of your system. So, you really can’t help it. You’re like a baby duck.”

“A baby du- Are you fucking kidding me?” Mr. Stark rose to his feet and angrily stalked across the room, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck. Peter didn’t need any special power to hear the _unbelievable…fucking ridiculous_  muttered under his breath.

“Mr. Stark, it’s okay-”

“No, it’s NOT ‘okay’!” he said, whirling around and pointing a finger in Peter’s direction. “It’s not okay!”

“Why?” Peter didn’t like the direction this was heading.

“Because I’m old enough to be your grandfather!”

“Oh, in what universe?!” The words carried Peter to his feet. Yeah, he was young. Yeah, he was inexperienced. But he wasn’t a child. He wasn’t _a child_  and Mr. Stark’s insinuation lit a fire in his belly.

“Uh, I don’t know, how about the one where I screwed around a lot when I was your age, and I wasn’t always careful about it. You’re a smart kid, Peter. You do that math and tell me I’m lying.”

“Hold on, just a sec,” Peter said. He could feel his face twist in anger. “You screwed around a lot when you my age? Really?”

“Yeah-”

“And I’m sure it was all just while perving on kids at a high school you didn’t even go to right?!”

“Of course it wasn’t!”

“Well okay then, Grandpa Stark,” Peter said loudly, “Maybe you better sit back down before you trip over all that hypocrisy and break a hip, because I don’t think I can help that!”

Mr. Stark stared at him, and Peter stared right back. Aunt May would probably say he was firing off his best Sassy Face, but she wasn’t there. If she were, she’d have stepped between them, telling them both to knock it off, because they may not be children, but they sure as shit were acting like them.

In her absence, they both just glared harder at each other.

Maybe it was the baby duck. Maybe it was Grandpa Stark or the dumb clothes stolen from the closet of a guy who thought Footloose was the greatest movie of all time. Whatever it was, Peter was entirely unprepared when a laugh — the kind that starts deep in the nasal cavity before doubling its owner over, leaving them gasping for breath between fits — burst from Mr. Stark. It was infectious, that laugh, and soon Peter was laughing right along with him as the tension faded from the room.

* * *

 

“So, what we do?” Mr. Stark asked. They’d long since fallen into silence, worn out from being pissed at each other and the universe and the whiplash that came from sudden inexplicable levity. They’d ended up on the floor, leaning into different walls of a corner.

“I don’t know,” Peter said. “What if … what if I took a little bit of the pollen? Then we couldn’t help it together, and maybe it wouldn’t seem so weird.” Mr. Stark was already shaking his head.

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for starters, I’m not going to be the guy who’s all ‘Hey, kids! Drugs are great! Afterward, I’ve got this van…’ ”

Peter smiled, barely holding back another laugh.

“Besides,” Mr. Stark continued, much more somberly. “It’s too risky. Once we’re in space, one of us needs to be able to be clear-headed.”

Peter nodded. That was a good point.

“I guess…” Peter shifted uncomfortably, unsure of how to continue. The more he thought about it, the more obvious the answer was, but he knew it wasn’t one Mr. Stark wanted to hear.

“What?”

“Back home, when I was younger and things didn’t go the way we wanted to, Uncle Ben used to say to me ‘You know, Peter, sometimes you just have to play the hand you're dealt.’” He stared at his hands and didn’t say that “Things” were dead parents or a small, uncoordinated body with a brain that moved miles a minute. Sometimes he missed Ben and his parents and he hated the way his life went. But strangely, for all the unexpectedness, this wasn’t one of those times, and he wished he knew how to make Mr. Stark understand that.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying maybe we don’t fight it. Just let what needs to happen, happen.”

“Peter-”

“Mr. Stark, that stuff is going to kill you!” Peter said, pointing furiously at the containment unit. “It’s going to kill you if you don’t do anything, and that’s the BEST case scenario! The best! Okay?”

“How is that the best?”

“Because worst case?” Peter continued. His voice was shaking. He could hear it. He could feel it. But he couldn’t stop it. “Worst case is that you don’t just go to bed with full wood and not wake up. Worst case is it drives you so crazy that when you don’t get what you need, it sends in you into a rage and you try to kill ME. And then I have to kill you, or lock you up and watch your kill yourself trying to get to me, and I don’t want that, Mr. Stark, I don’t want any part of that! I can’t lose-” Peter’s voice caught in his throat with words he couldn’t bring himself to say. His hands balled into fists at his sides.

Mr. Stark scooted over until they were side by side. His arm tensed like maybe he wanted to drape it over Peter’s shoulders but couldn’t work up the nerve or figure out if he even should. He settled instead for awkwardly patting Peter’s right arm. Peter reached with his left and grabbed Mr. Stark’s hand.

“I would rather be anything you need me to be than lose another person. And not just because I can’t get home without you. Not because you build me suits that smell like a new car. Because…because I just can’t. I can’t keep losing people. Okay?”

Mr. Stark brought his other hand to rest over Peter’s. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply before speaking.

“Okay.”

 


	7. Escape From Titan

Peter had gotten good at reading Mr. Stark’s body language when the pollen started to reassert its influence. He’d get fidgety. Start wiping at his mouth and nose. If it got as far as a little _ahem_  of a cough, Peter spoke up.

“Ahem,” Mr. Stark ran a sleeve across his mouth and stared at the pad next to the plate in front of him.

“Can I help you?”

“What?” Mr. Stark looked up at him before shaking his head and gesturing back to the food. “Nah, no. It’s just a little spicy.” Peter squinted at him before turning back to his own plate, twirling a mass of noodles onto his fork and shoving it in his mouth.

“Okay.” But he kept watch. Mr. Stark continued to shift in his seat. His breaths were more like forceful gusts, and if Peter really focused and everything else was very quiet, he could hear the telltale sound of his heart racing. Peter slipped a shoe off and ran his foot up Mr. Stark’s leg, stopping at his thigh. Mr. Stark’s eyes fluttered closed as he let out a small sigh. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I, uh…” Mr. Stark squirmed. A red flush began to form at his neck as Peter’s foot slid along his inseam.

“I’m only asking because you were the one who said you didn’t want to go into a frenzy if you could help it. Calm things down before everything got too exciting, you know?”

“Yeah.” Mr. Stark licked his lips and opened his eyes. “Yeah, okay.” He nodded and went to slide his chair back, but Peter hooked it with his foot, holding him in place.

“Stay there,” he said. Mr. Stark cocked his head questioningly. “You’ve barely touched your food,” Peter continued. “And you’ve been trying to get through that ship’s diagnostic for 20 minutes. So stay there. Eat. Read. Do your thing.” Peter took a giant swig of water and swished it around his mouth before disappearing under the table.

He crawled to Mr. Stark. His heart skipped a beat as he heard a fork scrape across a plate. It wasn’t very often that Peter threw his weight around, mostly because he didn’t have a lot to throw. He was a kid from Queens. Mr. Stark was a billionaire genius and one Earth’s mightiest heroes, and Peter would follow him just about anywhere. But sometimes even billionaire genius superheroes needed someone else to take the reins, and something about it was exhilarating.

Mr. Stark tensed only slightly when Peter’s hands went to his waist and undid his pants. And something in him relaxed as Peter nuzzled his face against the hot cotton beneath. He sighed as the fabric was pushed away and Peter’s tongue washed over his length. A gentle - _oh_  - escaped as his head passed  Peter’s lips.

He’d had always been a fast eater, wolfing his food down in giant bites before his classmates were even half through. Before Spider-Man, he’d thought it was just a result of short lunch periods coupled with an intense desire to get back to an interesting class. After Spider-Man, he assumed it was his metabolism demanding more to satiate his new abilities.

He knew better now.

It wasn’t until he was on his knees the first time in the storage room that he realized just how much he loved the feel of a full mouth. Something about it felt comfortable and safe, and once he was used to it, Mr. Stark -- whether it was weighing on his tongue, rubbing along the ridges of his palate or pushing into his cheeks — was satisfying beyond belief.

And it worked well for their current situation.

The pollen was a bit of a Catch-22. According to the documents Karen had retrieved and the handful of blood samples Peter had examined under the microscope, every encounter neutralized and expelled a portion of the pollen, and the rest entered a temporary dormant state. It reactivated in stages. First a little, then more, and then more. The more active the pollen, the more would be expelled and the longer the dormant stage would last.

But, as the active pollen increased, so too did Mr. Stark’s need. His desire. And left to its own devices, the pollen would begin to grow again, erasing progress and eventually replacing sanity with a feral, fervent lust worse than anything they’d experienced.

This left them at a bit of a crossroads. Did they fool around more often, when, say, a quick suck under a table would ease the burden, or less often and let Mr. Stark hit degrees where he craved even more?

Mr. Stark had promised never to let it get as bad as the med bay, and Peter didn’t have the courage to tell him that those moments when it was just his hands, his lips, his body moving against him had become new fuel for his personal fantasies. Still, there was something to be said for a well-timed hum making Mr. Stark gasp and bring a hand down to Peter’s face, palm brushing his cheek before fingers slid through his hair, nails just barely long enough to lightly scrape his scalp. The action drew a sigh of contentment from Peter that sent Mr. Stark spilling over the edge with a moan as his fingers clenched and relaxed.

Since the sinkhole, Mr. Stark rarely touched him outside of pollen-induced moments. Not that he’d been handsy before, but Peter had noticed a distinct lack of pats on the back or gentle knocking of shoulders at an inside joke. No fist bumps for technological progress or amused tousling of his hair. Peter missed it. He’d read once that spiders were super sensitive to touch and motion. He figured that had to play a part in his spider-sense, but as he basked in Mr. Stark’s contact and felt a pang of regret as they pulled away from each other, he couldn’t help but wonder if there was even more to it.

Peter emerged from under the table and stretched. Mr. Stark was slumped over in his chair, rubbing at his eyes. Peter suspected the amount of active pollen also had a hand in Mr. Stark’s state of wakefulness after a purge, but there wasn’t enough data to be sure. He didn’t look like he was about to pass out in his plate, though. Just drowsy. But they’d been here enough for Peter to know that a drowsy Mr. Stark became a contemplative Mr. Stark, and a contemplative Mr. Stark, if left on his own, became a more overtly guilt-ridden Mr. Stark. Fortunately, Peter had gotten pretty good at heading that line of thinking off at the pass.

“You done?” he said, nodding to Mr. Stark’s mostly empty plate. Mr. Stark nodded, and Peter started clearing the table. He could have been silent and stealthy but a he made a point to clink the plates together and clack the silverware on top. “Gonna drink the rest of that?”

“Nah.”

Peter downed the leftover liquid in one go and nested their cups together before carrying all the dishes to the sink. A nozzle shot out a short blast of soapy water, spun around and followed it up with clean.

“How’s the ship?”

“What?”

“We good to take off soon?” Peter nodded at the datapad on the table.

“Yeah,” Mr. Stark perked up as he looked at the datapad. “Yeah, all systems are functioning. There’s hull work left — a little more since the sinkhole. Honestly, we might be better off just sealing off part of the ship. It’d save material and without needing life support in places we’re not going, we could put more power to the engines.”

“And get home sooner?”

“Yeah.”

Peter grinned. He’d had enough of Titan. He didn’t know what was left of Earth, but it had to be better than the dusty dead planet where they’d watched five people turn to ash.

“Well, what are we sitting here for?! Let’s go!”

* * *

Peter did one last sweep through the compartments they were going to seal off. Anything that looked like it could be remotely useful was boxed up and placed in Mr. Stark’s room. Their room, now. It was the larger than the others with an air of captain’s quarters about it. If the captain was a 1980s-styled dudebro, that was. But there was plenty of room to stash supplies until they took off, and it was the only one that had a second bed. More like a cot, folded up against the wall behind a wardrobe of Quill’s and Peter could only assume that Gamora lady’s clothes.

It was really a pretty genius setup. The smaller bed folded up and the larger one that Mr. Stark must have been using suspended from the ceiling with what kind of reminded Peter of giant bike chains that could pull it up all the way to the ceiling and lower it to the floor, stopping anywhere in between. There was a little piece of him that couldn’t wait to eye the mechanics of the space-saving tech.

  
“Pete, you almost done up there?!” Mr. Stark’s voice echoed through the ship.

“Yeah, just about!” Peter ran back to the room he’d been staying in. He checked the sheets, under the bed and around the desk for anything he might have left behind. He pulled open a desk drawer and paused at a small square screen. He’d looked at it once before. It was like a digital photo album with candid shots and selfies of all the people they’d lost on the planet and a green woman that must have been who’d sent Quill into a rage if a sneakily caught snap of them canoodling in a hallway was any indicator. But the more than any of them were pictures of what looked like a sentient, bipedal, clothes-wearing racoon and … a tree? With a face and arms and legs?

Peter had stared at them for a long time, taking in the strangeness of it. But the more he looked at them, the more he saw the easy smiles. The eyes full of affection. Laughter. They really weren’t that different from photo albums he had at home full of images of him with Uncle Ben and Aunt May and his parents. Sure, they looked different from him and from each other, but there was no denying that they were family. He almost left it in the drawer. It wasn’t his to take, after all.

What if something happens?

That niggling voice in the back of his head wouldn’t go away. Peter had the utmost confidence in Mr. Stark, but what if something went wrong after they sealed off this half the ship? What if something broke? They’d be fine in their half, but everything here would get sucked into space, right?

“Kid, let’s GO!”

“Right! Coming!” Peter grabbed the album and crammed it into his pocket, closing the door behind him. He pulled the rest of the doors shut as he went before entering the flight cabin, passing the tiers of passenger seats and settling into the copilot’s chair next to Mr. Stark.

“Took you long enough.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

Peter strapped into the seat and gave all the displays a once over as Mr. Stark went through the initial flight checks. His job was simple. The planet’s gravitation was jacked all to hell, with some spots light enough that a gentle hop could send someone 10 feet in the air and others so heavy if took every ounce of strength to lift a foot. All Peter had to do was watch the monitor and tell Mr. Stark when the shifts were coming up so he could adjust the thrusters as he flew them out of the rocky winding canyon Peter’d set them down in after the sinkhole. While they were doing that, Karen would be scanning for the lowest-gravity point in the area. Because really, Mr. Stark had said, why do all the work of breaking the atmosphere when the planet itself could bear the brunt?

It made sense, but Peter’s stomach was still tied in knots. It had taken everything they could scavenge to get this ship running. If it didn’t work? They didn’t have any other options for getting home.

“Relax, kid,” Mr. Stark said. “We’re going to make it.”

Peter nodded as Mr. Stark flipped the last switches and the ship whirred to life. The land before them was laid out in a grid on Peter’s screen. He shouted instructions, doing his best to help them avoid the most gravity dense sections. The ship bucked and shook as they passed from one zone to the next and Mr. Stark gripped the controls tightly and weaved around rock formations.

Finally, they were in the open and Mr. Stark set the ship down on a patch of land that was only a little heavier than Earth gravity.

“Okay, well that wasn’t so bad,” he said, but Peter couldn’t miss the slight shaking of a pinkie as Mr. Stark wiped sweat from his brow. “Where to now, Karen?”

“I’ve found the optimal site for liftoff, but getting there might be a problem.” A new map appeared on Peter’s screen.

“Uh-oh,” he said.

“What’s ‘uh-oh’ mean?”

“It looks like the lightest gravity point is surrounded by some of the most dense. Kinda like the eye of a storm.”

“How dense?”

“Umm…” Peter did some quick calculations. “Imagine The Hulk standing on your shoelace. And even in the dense parts there are little striations of lighter-gravitational pull.”

“Great.” Mr. Stark punched a few buttons on his console. “Looks like we’d still use more energy trying to take off from here than we would going through it, though.” He swiped his fingers across the console and a few lights shifted from his over to Peter’s. “I’m giving you control of the secondary thrusters to help with the transition through the lighter-grav anomalies-”

“Wait, me?!” Peter said. “You know I bounced off the ground a few times getting away from the sinkhole, right?!”

“Is that why the lower hull looked like a mini golf course?” Mr. Stark said with a small smile. Peter’s eyes went wide. “It’s fine,” Mr. Stark continued. “You’ll be fine. Just use those spider senses. And buckle up.”

Peter nodded and tightened the straps across his shoulders.

It was a bumpy ride. Peter’s muscles were tense as he adjusted his part of the thrusters and the ship swerved and rocked on all its axes. He spared one glance for Mr. Stark. His knuckles were white as he gripped the controls. His teeth gritted and his brow furrowed in concentration. The ship groaned and for a second Peter wondered if it might break apart before they even really got off the ground.

And just like that, they were through. The nose of the ship shot up like…well…like a rocket, Peter realized, and it was only thanks to some fast button mashing that he was able to adjust his thrusters enough to keep the ship from rolling backward, end-over-end and crashing back into the ground. And then they were off, pushed back in their seats as the ship zoomed toward the stratosphere.

Even with the lighter gravity, Titan didn’t want to let them go. As the sky around them took on a celestial glow and the blackness of space came into view, the engines whined, the ship rattled and groaned, and it was nothing compared to the bits of rock that began bouncing off the hull and windows.

“What is that?” Peter asked. He had to yell over the sounds of the ship.

“Lunar rocks!” Karen said cheerfully. “No doubt remnants of the moon Thanos destroyed and dropped on Mr.-”

“Not now, Karen!” Mr. Stark said as he struggled to avoid the chunks while keeping their upward trajectory. It felt like they were almost free of the planet’s pull when a hunk of moon about the size of a basketball went sailing overhead, crashing into the hull and scraping across. Peter had just registered the sound of something breaking when an alarm blared from his console.

“We lost one of the secondary thrusters!” he yelled as he quickly cut power the other one to keep them balanced.

“That’s okay,” Mr. Stark said. “We’re almost there, and we’ve still got the big guns.” He increased the throttle and Peter pretended like he didn’t hear the pleading “ _Come on. **Come on**_ , _hold together_ ,” under Mr. Stark’s breath. Peter squeezed his eyes shut. If they were going to break apart, blow up or otherwise die two-thirds of the way between space and the planet, he didn’t want to see it. Hearing it was bad enough. Feeling it in the shake and vibration of his seat was worse.

 

  
Silence.

 

  
Stillness.

 

  
Were they dead?

_Don’t be stupid, Peter._  He opened his eyes. Space and the pin pricks of light from far away stars were all around them. He turned to Mr. Stark. His head was bowed over the flight controls. His breaths heavy like he’d just sprinted down 10 city blocks. And yet, Peter still couldn’t quite believe it.

“Did we make it?”

“Yeah,” Mr. Stark looked over at him and couldn’t hide his grin nor the laugh that bubbled up beneath it. “Yeah, we did.” He may have been trying to contain his joy, but Peter made no such effort as a cheer burst from deep in his chest and he felt solid, unbridled happiness for the first time since swinging away from a school bus to try to save a wizard.

But the lightness in his heart wasn’t limited to that, he realized, when he undid his safety restraints and watched the strips of fabric float over his head. Peter pushed off the arm rests and floated up the cabin.

“Whoa.” He spun and twirled in the open space and when he finally reached out a hand to stop himself, he was floating mostly on his back, tilted just enough that he could look down at Mr. Stark. “This is so awesome.” Mr. Stark craned his head to look up at him, eyebrow cocked, slight smile still tugging at his lips.

“You scale walls with your fingertips and swing from rooftops attached to a glorified string and Zero-G is what gets you excited?”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”

“You know I fly around in a metal suit for a living, right?”

“This is different, trust me.”

Mr. Stark shrugged and undid his safety harness. With a gentle push, he moved upward until he reached Peter and lightly nudged his shoulder, spinning him upright. They were both grinning by the time Peter had straightened himself out and turned around.

“Have you ever experienced anything like this?” he asked Mr. Stark.

“Not quite.”

* * *

Peter only felt a mild pang of regret as he walked through the ship. Zero gravity was fun — way different from a free-fall — but it couldn’t last. The turbine at the bottom of the ship that supplied the artificial gravity also worked like the alternator of a car, supplying additional power to all the other systems.

“It actually generates more energy than it uses!” Peter had exclaimed after finding it tucked away, accessible by a crawlspace that was just barely big enough for him. Mr. Stark had been a little less impressed, but Peter figured that was a given for the man who ran his buildings on completely clean ARC energy.

It was one of the few mechanical aspects of repairing the ship that they’d worked together on, and Peter learned more about engineering in the day and a half they’d spent on it than he’d learned in all his years of school. So, yeah. Walking down the hall wasn’t as cool as floating down it, but it was worth it for the experience of getting there.

But now Peter was tired, and he wanted nothing more than to collapse onto his cot. Karen had the wheel — and boy, had it taken some convincing to make Mr. Stark accept that he didn’t actually have to — and in fact could not — be in the captain’s chair the whole trip home. Rebuilt with the scavenged supplies there was no way this ship could match the speeds of the donut ship, and they had a long flight ahead of them.

And much as he tried to deny it, everyone needed to sleep. Sure enough, when Peter entered their room, Mr. Stark was stretched face-down in his bed with his arms wrapped around a pillow. Peter grabbed bedding from one of the wardrobes and piled it onto his cot as quietly as possible. He should have done this earlier, he realized, but once he had sheets, pillow and blanket spread across the surface, he took off his shoes, traded the tight pants for some baggy pajama bottoms that didn’t matter if they were too big and flopped into bed, digging under the covers.

It was cold.

He hadn’t noticed it before. There was so much to do that the temperature difference between the surface of the planet and the blackness of space just hadn’t registered for him. But now, with nothing but his thoughts and a dark room to occupy him, he could feel the chill seeping into his bones. He gave it a minute, snuggled deeper into his blanket, hoping it would help, but it didn’t. Sighing, he tossed it aside and went to the cabinet for another.

It didn’t help, either. He grabbed a third, tossed and turned, hoping that the action would raise his body temperature enough that the warmth could get trapped beneath the linens, and was just contemplating the feasibility of piling the clothes from the wardrobes on top of his nest-

“Oh, god, kid would you just come over here?”

Peter turned his head sharply to Mr. Stark. He was still lying on his stomach but his head was turned to face him. Peter could just barely see his eyes glinting in the little bit of light from the window. Was it time already?

“Do you…do you need-”

“No,” Mr. Stark said firmly. “Nothing like that, but you’re clearly cold, I’m not, and I will never get to sleep if you’re tossing and turning like a…I don’t even know what, that’s how tired I am right now.”

Peter couldn’t hold back a sly smile.

“I thought you didn’t need to sleep?” For his trouble, he got a thrown pillow to the face.

“Get over here,” Mr. Stark said. “And bring that back with you.”

Peter laughed as he gathered up his bedding and Mr. Stark’s pillow and crossed the small space between them. Mr. Stark scooted over and rolled onto his side to face the wall. He was in shorts and a T-shirt, and Peter had no idea how he could stand it as he crawled into bed and spread his additional blankets between them. He’d just settled in when Mr. Stark hissed.

“Jesus, your feet are freezing,” he said.

Peter grinned and resisted the urge to lay the sole of his foot flat against Mr. Stark’s calf. Instead, he pressed his back firmly against his and let the warmth of Mr. Stark’s body wash over him as he drifted to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes: 
> 
> 1\. Sorry for the delay on this chapter. Real life got in the way a little bit, but at least this is a longer one.
> 
> 2\. Delays might continue. Unfortunately/Fortunately, we've entered my favorite time of year, full of state fairs and new TV and most of all, the Trick or Treat Fic Exchange (yes, this account is a sock because I started out really nervous about writing Peter/Tony). I'm still going to try not to go more than two weeks between updates, though. This fic is plotted all the way to the end, so it's not like I don't know where I'm going. It's just sometimes writing is hard.
> 
> 3\. Interested in spiders and touch? A little bit of this chapter drew its inspiration from a recent episode of Because Science about Peter's spider-sense. Watch it here, if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygt6W64gatE


	8. Dust in the wind

The grass felt soft beneath his feet. Clean and fresh and not at all like the ship. They made it. They were home.

“Hey!” a voice called out. Peter whipped his head around to find its owner. “Hey, look! It’s Peter and Mr. Stark!”

“Ned!” Peter couldn’t help but grin as he started jogging in that direction. Michelle was there, too. And Mr. Harrington. Even Flash. And they were all heading toward him.

“Peter?!” He stopped in his tracks at her voice. “Oh, god, PETER!”

Aunt May. He wasn’t expecting the tears, but there they were stinging his eyes as he veered slightly to the left and ran to her. She was coming to him at a dead sprint. She passed Ned and the others almost immediately, and if Captain America had been there she would have left him in the dust. The second that they were in reaching distance she pulled him into a hug tighter than any he’d experienced before. And he hugged her right back as she cried into his shoulder

“I missed you so much,” she said. Her voice was muffled through his clothes. “I didn’t know if you were alive or dead; don’t ever do that to me again!”

“I know, I’m sorry, I won’t,” Peter answered. He couldn’t stop his voice from shaking. May finally pulled back and looked at him. Ran her hands across his face and through his hair, almost like she couldn’t believe he was there. The others finally caught up to May, and they were all smiles, peppering him with questions and congratulations and welcome homes.

Ned was the first to notice that something was wrong.

“Uh, Pete, what’s happening?” He sounded afraid. Peter turned to him. Ned held up his hand — what was left of his hand — as it turned to dust and swirled around them. Peter reached for him, but all he grabbed was the powder that consumed Ned’s forearm. His shoulder.

“Pete-” Ned was cut short and then gone.

No. No, no no. Peter turned to Michelle and Flash and Mr. Harrington, and they both gave him the same plaintive looks. Help me, their eyes said, because it wasn’t long before their voices couldn’t.

May gasped behind him. Peter could feel his heart breaking as he turned back to her.

“No,” he whispered. “No, May, no.” She went slower than the others. First it was just her hair blowing in the wind and then blowing away. She reached for him. Grabbed at him. Peter wrapped his arms around her body to hold on to what was left and keep her there. He squeezed until she crumpled into him like sand.

He squeezed until there was nothing left but ash. Ash on his skin. In his eyes. In his throat.

_"Peter?"_

He tried to speak. He tried to yell. To cry. To scream. But every time him opened his mouth, nothing came out. Panic dropped him to is knees.

“Kid?!”

“Mr. Stark!” Peter spun around on the grass.

_“You okay?”_

Mr. Stark was about 30 feet away. He was still there. Peter hauled himself to his feet. They ran for each other, but neither had taken more than a few steps before Mr. Stark stumbled. He was fading, too. Peter ran, sliding the last several feet on his knees, so he and Mr. Stark were at eye level when they met. So he could grab him under the arms and pull him up. Get him back to the ship. It was safe on the ship, right?

They were almost to the ramp. Mr. Stark got lighter with every step, and then, in an instant, he was gone, too.

  
“No! No no no, don’t go! Come back, please!”

_“Wake up.”_

The wind picked up, whipping Peter’s hair around and sending a dust storm right for him. There was so much of it. Not it, he realized. Them. His family, his friends, they were all over him, blinding him, choking him, he was drowning in them-

_**“HEY! WAKE UP”** _

Peter’s eyes snapped open as he gasped for air. Bolting upright and rolling out of bed he landed with his palms flat on the floor behind him. He could feel his heart racing. Could hear it too, but panic clouded his vision. Was he on the ship? Was it Titan? Earth? He couldn’t tell, and it only got worse as he tried to scramble away.

His fingers and his toes stuck to the surface. He jerked and he pulled until he thought the flesh would rip from his bones, and a yell erupted deep from his chest, but nothing happened.

“Hey, hey, hey. You’re all right. It’s okay-”

“I-I can’t move,” Peter choked. “I can’t…I can’t…I’m stuck!”

A heavy arm draped over his shoulders. He could feel his head being pulled forward until it rested against Mr. Stark’s chest. The back of his fingers stroked gently down Peter’s cheek.

“It’s all right. You’re okay. Just breathe.” Mr. Stark’s voice was calm and soothing as his breath ruffled Peter’s hair. He focused on Mr. Stark’s heartbeat, slow and steady, and tried to will his own heart to match it. Soon he felt something in his extremities. A release that allowed his fingers to peel gently off the floor. He raised his hand and clung to Mr. Stark, burying his face in the crook of his arm.

“What if we get back and they’re all gone?” he asked. “May and Ned and MJ and everybody? What if they’re dust already?” His voice shook. His entire body trembled. “I don’t want to be alone, Mr. Stark,” he said. “I don’t want to be all alone.”

“You won’t be.”

“How can you know that?”

Mr. Stark pulled away and lifted Peter’s chin to look him in the eye.

“Because I’m not going anywhere.”

Whatever shame or fear or force of will that had been barely holding Peter together snapped. His next breath brought with it a wracking sob and tears he could only try to hide with his hands. Mr. Stark pulled him closer again, wrapped his arms around him and kissed the top of his head.

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I’ve got you, and I’m not leaving.”

As they sat there, holding each other on the floor of a spaceship, Peter prayed that was a promise Mr. Stark could keep.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Peter woke up alone on Mr. Stark’s side of the bed. He panicked for all of half a second before rolling over and breathing in the almost minty smell of borrowed shave gel and feeling the still-warm indent of where Mr. Stark had slept, Peter wedged between him and the wall, almost like he was trying to shield him from all the bad in the universe. Peter rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat up. A glass sat on a bench next to the bed, a folded over scrap of paper leaning against it.

_Morning sleepyhead. Drink up._

Water. He hadn’t even realized how parched he was, but once he’d drained the glass, he felt more awake and alert than he had in days. He dressed quickly and left the cabin.

“Mr. Stark?” he called out. There was no answer other than the clang of his feet on the floor. “Mr. Stark?” _Please don’t be a bad dream within a bad dream_ … “Mr. St-”

“Yeah?!”

 _Oh, thank god._ Mr. Stark’s voice rang out from the galley, and Peter hurried that way. When he got there, he found Mr. Stark standing over the stove, flipping something that looked sort of like a pancake while a plate of the meat strips that he vehemently refused to call facon despite Peter''s insistence sitting next to a warm burner.

“Hey, kid. What’s up?”

“Nothing, I just…you’re making breakfast?”

“Yeah, thought you could use the sleep,” Mr. Stark said as he plated the food and brought it to the table. “No promises on flavor, though. I’m not exactly a chef with Earth ingredients, and these…” he waved a hand toward the pantry of goods they’d fumbled their way through, trying to figure out what could be equivalent to familiar things.

“I’m sure it’s fine.” Peter poured an amber syrup over the pancake and took a bite. “Hmm. It is good!” he exclaimed. There was something nutty to it with just a hint of sweet and salty, and he quickly took another bite. Mr. Stark narrowed his eyes at him before cutting a small piece of his own.

He immediately grimaced.

“You like this?”

“Yeah! It’s great!”

Mr. Stark rolled his eyes and picked up his plate, sliding the pancake on top of Peter’s.

”Awesome! Double stack!”

“Yeah,” Mr. Stark said, nicking a couple pieces of facon from Peter’s plate in trade. “Enjoy that cast iron stomach while you’ve got it, kid. You’ll miss it when it’s gone.” Peter grinned at him and took another huge bite.

They ate in silence for a while. Mr. Stark was the first to speak.

“So, I was thinking we should talk.”

“Talk?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, we’ve been…” he paused and looked down at his plate for a moment before continuing. “We’ve been screwing around for a while now, but what do we really know about each other? I mean, you’re a student, I’m a glorified mechanic. We’re both sort of superheroes. Kinda feels like there’s a lot of ground we haven’t covered.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know…what’s your favorite food?”

“Thai,” the answer spilled out of Peter’s mouth almost instantly.

“Okay, that’s not a food, that’s a cuisine.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Peter said. “If it’s Thai, there’s like a 99.8 percent chance I’m going to love it. The other .02 percent chance is that I’ll like it. You?”

“Cheeseburgers.”

“I suppose a fancy cheeseburger ground from…what’s that Japanese steak that practically comes with its own birth certificate?”

“Wagyu?”

“Yeah, that with some fancy cheese imported from France and heirloom tomato compote on a bun made from freshly ground wheat.”

Mr. Stark was laughing before Peter had even finished speaking. It was an amazing sound, and Peter could could on one hand the number of times he’d heard it.

“Nah,” Mr. Stark said. “That’d be my dad. Me? Honestly? Get yourself some 70/30 ground chuck, some salt, pepper and slap it on a grill with a slice of American cheese. Mustard. Ketchup. A pickle if we’re feeling fancy.”

“Get outta town,” Peter said. “You, Mr. Billionaire Genius Inventor, love a $2 cheeseburger more than any other food on — or off — the planet?”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Parker, you’ve made some good stuff here.” Peter blushed and ducked his head away from the compliment as Mr. Stark continued with a slightly more serious tone. “Everyone expects the eccentric. The expensive. The out-of-touch. And sometimes it’s true. But sometimes it’s just for show. Give people what they want to see, and it’s easier to get them to ignore the things you'd rather they didn't.”

Peter swallowed the urge to ask “Like what?” behind another mouthful of pancake.

“Okay,” Mr. Stark said. “Your turn. Ask me anything.”

Peter chewed slowly. Tried not to smirk at the literal chin-hands Mr. Stark was giving him. He looked closer and noticed a faint smear of green next to Mr. Stark’s ear.

“You’ve got some stuff…” he said around a mouthful of food, waving his hand in the general direction of Mr. Stark’s right side.

“What? Food on my face?” Mr. Stark wiped a hand over his mouth as Peter shook his head.

“Huh-uh. Here,” Peter swallowed, dabbed his napkin into a glass of water and leaned forward, swiping gently at the spot. “Shave stuff,” he said as he leaned back into his chair. “Hey, yeah. That’s my question. We are in outer space. There’s no one else here, and we don’t even have our own supplies. Why are you still shaving every day? Because I can’t grow a beard to save my soul, but if I could? This would totally be the time to do it.”

Mr. Stark leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out.

“Huh,” he said. “Good question.” He took a breath and Peter could tell he was about to bust out with some flip answer designed to draw a laugh and move along. But then he paused, with a thoughtful expression and exhaled. “How much — god, you probably weren’t even double-digits yet — Do you know much about just how “Iron Man” became a thing? Do you remember any of that?”

“Honestly? I don’t *remember* much. I mean, when I think about it like that, I remember when I didn’t know Iron Man existed and I remember knowing you did. You’ve just kind of always been there. But after I…after I got bit, I started really researching all the heroes. Mostly Captain America and Dr. Banner, since they had actual biochemical changes, but you too — and first, since you were kinda my favorite and all-”

“I was your favorite superhero?”

“Don’t get a big head about it, but yeah. You actually probably saved my life at the Stark Expo that one time-”

“What?”

“Yeah, it was a thing,” Peter brushed by the comment. He was just a little boy who wouldn’t have known better, but now the thought of a little kid in a mask with toys on his hands standing up to a fully armed drone was so, so cringe-worthy. “No biggie. But…I know that some bad men captured you. Hurt you. It’s why you had the arc reactor.”

“Yeah, we kept the details pretty sparse,” Mr. Stark said. “I was in Afghanistan, selling some missiles, when my caravan was hit.” He paused and shook his head like he still couldn’t believe it. “Hit with my own artillery. When I woke up, there was a magnet in my chest connected to a car battery to keep metal barbs from entering my heart. And there were these guys who wanted me to build more weapons for them. It was just me and … a friend … and for awhile, before I got the idea to build the miniature arc reactor, I didn’t have any power. People told me when to get up, when to eat, when to sleep. I couldn’t move without lugging around a 40-pound weight. The only thing I had any control over was this.” He waved his hand in a circle around his neatly trimmed goatee. “So, that’s what I did. And now it’s just kind of habit.”

“Oh.” Peter wasn’t sure what else to say. He’d expected the goofy answer or maybe some glimpse into Young Tony Stark’s Teenage Years but this felt deeply personal. Like maybe something Peter didn’t deserve to know. Except now he did.

“But, hey, my turn,” Mr. Stark said, “And I gotta ask: What is it with you and movies? You’ve got a movie reference for everything it seems like. What’s that about?”

Oh.

Peter took his time. He was out of food, but he took a long pull on his water while he tried to figure out how to explain it.

“Well,” he said when his glass was empty. “It’s nothing as harrowing as that, but … my dad was a big movie buff. We watched movies all the time. And sometimes it was just whatever dumb cartoon I wanted to watch for the 30th time in a row, but he also had this little notepad. Pretty much every time we talked about something or I took an interest in something he made a note. I guess he was just really trying to get a handle on who I was. Can you imagine anyone taking an 8-year-old that seriously? But he’d take all these notes and then he’d start making this list of movies he thought I’d like, and once a month we’d spend a day just watching the list movies. It was so long, like, I didn’t even know that many movies existed and every month I’d look at the list and find at least one or two new things tacked to the bottom of it. It was great.” Peter could feel himself smiling at the memory. He hadn’t thought about his dad like this in a long time, but as the reality of why set in, he could feel the smile begin to falter.

“After he died,” Peter continued, hoping the words would mask his feelings, “my uncle took on the cinematic education of one Peter Parker. You know, they were brothers and he was just as big a fan as my dad. For the longest time, we’d just watch the movies Dad picked, but after awhile Uncle Ben started adding his own things to list. It was like…I was making new memories with him while keeping my dad’s alive. It was something that just about us Parker Men, you know?”

“May not into the movie scene?”

“Nah, I mean she likes them enough. She’d sit down and watch something with us but she didn’t really get into it like we did. It's not her passion. I don’t even think she has a favorite genre, much less a favorite movie. But, uh. After Ben…after he died, I was in a really bad place, you know? I’d do anything to feel closer to him and my dad, and so one long weekend, I sat down and I spent three days just powering through the list of movies, one right after the other, pretending like they were both still there with me.”

“That sounds like a good way to keep them with you.”

“It was,” Peter said. “It was, right up until I got to the end of the list, and realized there’d never be any more.” Peter closed his eyes. He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t going to cry. And he didn’t cry, but when he opened his eyes again, there were no words for the gratitude he felt to see Mr. Stark looking the other way. Peter coughed. “So instead,” he continued, “I watched them again. And again And again, until I knew them backward and forward, so now, when I see something that can relate — like tripping up a giant man or shooting an alien into space — it’s kinda like they’re whispering it in my ear or something. I don’t know if that makes sense.”

“It does.”

“Also,” Peter continued, “I don’t know what to watch anymore. I haven’t seen a new-to-me movie in two years.”

“Two years?! Geez, kid, what do you do all night?”

“Patrol, mostly.”

“You know,” Mr. Stark said, “Not to tarnish your memories of dear old dad and uncle, but there are about a million algorithms that can spit out movies you’d probably like. I could write you one in two minutes.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same,” Peter said. “An algorithm can say ‘Oh, you liked that? Maybe you’ll like this!’ but it doesn’t know _why_ you like something. Like, Netflix doesn’t know if I like Empire Strikes Back because of the story or the genre or because Han Solo was at peak hotness-” Mr. Stark’s eyebrow ticked up subtly at that. Peter pretended not to notice -- and that he hadn’t said what he hadn’t meant to say -- and carried on. “It’s just…it’s not the same as somebody saying ‘Hey, I was thinking about _you_.  I took the time and cared enough to know who _you_ are, even if it meant the lyrics to Hakuna Matata are forever embedded in my brain, and I thought you'd like this.’ I don't know. Maybe I'm just being too sentimental.”

"You're not," Mr. Stark said. "It makes perfect sense."

They lapsed into another silence. Mr. Stark stared at a spot on the table, nibbling on his lower lip, lost in thought. Peter swiped his finger through the leftover syrup on his plate and spoke again.

“I guess there’s something else we know about each other, besides shaving and film preferences.”

“Yeah, what’s that?” Mr. Stark looked up at him.

“We both sure know how to bring a room down with our sadsack stories.”

Mr. Stark grinned as he stood and picked up his plate.

“Yeah, yeah I guess we do.” He walked around the table and added Peter’s empty plate to his own. “Let’s clean up and get to the cockpit. See where we are today.” He dropped a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

Peter didn’t know if the fingers lingering at his neck as Mr. Stark passed were his imagination or not, but his eyes closed at the touch and he promised himself he wouldn’t worry on it either way. Even as his heart skipped a beat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone likes this. It ended up three times longer than I meant it to be. :) Thanks so much again for all your kudos and comments. Even if I'm slow to respond, or I don't reply to each and every one, I appreciate all of them.


	9. Where The Mind Is

It had been weeks on the ship. Peter spent most of his time in the lab, trying to learn everything he could about everything he found. Mr. Stark wandered between engineering and the cockpit, seemingly content to tinker with this or that and watch space as they flew through it.

“Peter, it’s been 10 minutes,” Karen’s voice said over the med bay’s speaker.

“Thanks, Kare.” He abandoned the file saved in the ship’s archives — an old news report detailing the heroics of the Guardians of the Galaxy on Xandar — and walked over to a small contraption that had been shaking a container of various liquids until they formed one cohesive unit. He flipped a switch and the machine stopped moving, allowing Peter to remove the glass jar and twist off its lid. He dipped his finger inside, and pulled it back out for examination.

The liquid had some viscosity. It coated the pad of of his middle finger as one drop traveled down toward his palm, leaving a slight trail as it went. It was slick and slippery as he rubbed his thumb against it, but it was already starting to dry at the thin edges. Pretty much the exact opposite of his webbing.

“Hmm.” Peter grabbed a different bottle and squirted a few drops into the container, resealed it and began shaking by hand. “Karen, make a note-”

Peter gasped as a shiver went down his spine. He didn’t even have time to get to the communications console when something hit the ship with a loud bang, knocking him off balance.

He took off running for the cockpit.

“What’s happening?” he yelled as he practically jumped past the passenger seats and landed at the copilot’s chair.

“Asteroid field,” Mr. Stark said. He seemed remarkably calm. “Most of them I’ve been able to avoid, but some are big enough they’ve got some gravitational pull.”

“Holy…” Peter let the words trail off as Mr. Stark’s words sunk in. He didn’t know a ton about space, but he figured an asteroid had to be pretty huge if it had its own gravity. “Was that the-”

“Yep, the underside of that big one back there picked us up before I could adjust.”

“Can I help?”

“Nah, we’re almost through,” Mr. Stark said. Peter watched as his hands moved smoothly across the controls, making the ship shift this way and that like it was nothing. And just like that, they came out the other side and were back in open space, leaving all the asteroids behind them.

“See there,” Mr. Stark said. “Piece of cake.”

“I’m afraid that’s not entirely accurate,” Karen said over the speakers.

“Oh, what now?”

“It appears your collision with the asteroid damaged the valve on one of the external oxygen containers. There’s a small leak, and a piece of debris caught on one of the ship’s crevices. If it works loose, it could be in direct path to rupture the container.”

“That, uh, that sounds pretty bad,” Peter said.

“Yeah, no kidding. What can we do about it, Karen?”

“My recommendation would be a spacewalk. Peter’s webbing should be able to seal off the leak, and the piece of debris could be removed as well.”

“Perfect!” Tony clapped his hands together. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Hold up, wait a second,” Peter said. “Because that sounded like one of us — meaning me — has to go _out there_ ,” Peter gestured forcefully at the window.

“Yeah, that’s what a spacewalk is.”

Peter stared out into the black. His hands — god, he was actually wringing his hands.

“Not getting cold feet on me, are you kid?”

“Uh, yeah. A little,” Peter said. Mr. Stark had a way of making the impossible seem easy. Old hat, even, as he fixed and flew an alien ship, carried a nuke through a space portal and build a super suit in a cave out of scrap.

“Come on, how is this different from hitching a ride after I told you to go home, or jettisoning an evil alien wizard-kidnapper into space?”

“It’s…I…”

“Ahhh, see,” Mr Stark said with a grin that just oozed a smug “I’ve out-thought you on this, I win!” argument. “It’s no different.”

“I didn’t have time to think about those!” Peter exclaimed. He turned away from Mr. Stark and stared out into the distance, balling his hands into fists to keep from shaking. He didn’t want to be afraid. There was a part of him that knew Mr. Stark would be different if he really though there’d be a danger Peter couldn’t handle. And he’d designed the suit, so he knew what it was capable of. And yet, the idea of being out there with nothing but a thin layer of nanites between him and the vacuum of space made his skin crawl.

Mr. Stark swiveled his chair around. Peter could feel him staring and could imagine the set of his brow and the tip of of his tongue clenched between his teeth as he thought of what to say next. If it were anyone else, Peter was pretty sure they’d offer reassurance and comfort to ease his fear. But this was Mr. Stark, a man not known for subtlety.

“Okay,” he said. “Stay here, and maybe we won’t run out of air and suffocate to death. And if we’re really lucky we won’t explode when that rock breaks free. Good plan.” He turned his chair back around and and started to double check all the instruments on the console.

“No,” Peter said with a sigh. “It’s not.”

* * *

 

Peter stood in the cargo bay and ran his hands up and down his arms. But the chill he felt was nothing like walking home without a coat on a cold day. No, it was something else deep inside him.

“Are you sure my web shooters will work out there?”

“They’ll be fine.”

Peter nodded and took several shallow breaths.

“Your air will be fine, too, Peter,” Karen said softly in his ear. Peter took a deep breath. He knew she was right. She wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him. Unless something happened to her.

“Wait,” Peter said. “What if something happens to Karen and the helmet cracks or something and my eyes pop out like that movie?”

“Yeah, what movie’s that?”

“I don’t know, all of them!”

“Pete, take a breath,” Mr. Stark said. His voice was different. His amused, joking tone turned serious. Caring, even. “You’re going to be fine out there. I mean, who made that suit?”

“You.”

“Right. And I’ve got some experience in this arena, so just breathe. It’s going to be okay. Hakuna Matata.”

“Hakuna Matata,” Peter said quietly. “Right. Okay.” Mr. Stark was right. Karen was right. Nothing was going to happen, and he wasn’t going to shooting out into space when the doors opened either. Not that that stopped him from moving closer to the wall and crouching down so his toes, knees and the palm of one hand stuck firmly to the deck and the other hand gripped metal bar. “Okay,” he said. “I’m ready.”

The ramp lowered, and soon Peter was left staring at nothingness dotted by the pinpricks of far away stars. It was dizzying, and he could feel his stomach lurch.

“Focus on the ship,” Mr. Stark said in his ear. “Just look down.” Peter did as he was told, staring instead at the dingy metal that could use a mop across its surface, and waited for his heart rate and breathing to return to something approaching normal. Then, steeling his nerves, he let go of the bar.

Nothing happened.

“Hey. Hey, Mr. Stark, I think it’s going to be okay.”

“See? What did I tell you? Now chop chop, Parker. Time’s wasting.”

It wasn’t that bad, actually. The suit kept him warm, and his powers kept him stuck to the ship as he crawled outside and made his way to the external reserve oxygen tanks. The tanks were actually encased in a secure housing that did a lot to ease Peter’s mind. Because, to be honest, when Karen had said they kept oxygen — you know, highly explosive oxygen — strapped to the outside of their space ship, he’d carried a little bit of nerves about it. But there didn’t actually seem to be anything to worry about as far as rupturing the tanks went. Just the hose that connected the reserves to the ship’s internal system. And from that, Peter could see the tear through which a steady stream of gas plumed into space. And sure enough, a few sprays of webbing sealed it up just fine. But Peter thought he could do better than that and got to work shooting long, thick strands of webbing at the ship’s hull, crossing them over and pulling them tight until he’d built a webbed casing around the exposed bit of hose.

“Okay, that’s taken care of,” Peter said. He hadn’t really taken his eyes off the pieces of hull in front of him until that moment. That was when he saw it. “Whoa.”

“Whoa, what?”

“Uh, I found that debris Karen was talking about.” Debris was an understatement. It looked like a jagged boulder as big as one of those people-sized hamster balls. Peter moved toward it and could see where it had scraped across the top of the ship, exposing pipes and power conduits before slamming into what he could only assume was one of the secondary thrusters and coming to a stop. Karen was right. If it broke free somehow and collided with the oxygen tanks, it wouldn’t just rupture them. It’d probably knock them clean off the ship and take half the hull with it.

Karen was able to send an image of the rock to one of Mr. Stark’s screens, and after some brief strategizing, they had a plan. Peter approached the boulder and Karen overlaid a pattern of red lines on his display. Peter followed it with his webbing and it wasn’t long before the boulder was encased in a sling. All he had to do was hurl it like Davey versus Goliath, and send it ahead of them, where it could be easily avoided.

Peter gripped the ends of his webs and pulled. Nothing happened. He adjusted his grip and shifted his body for more leverage as an old lesson about mass versus weight played in the back of his mind. Once repositioned, he tried again, accessing a little more of his spider strength as he did, and soon he could feel the stressed groan of the rock pulling away from the metal. And once it started moving, it only got easier. As the rock moved closer, Peter took up the slack in his webbing, and as soon as it was taut, he spun his body around and heaved, releasing the web as he did.

His momentum carried him around and almost spun him off balance as he tried to regain his footing, which might have been why he didn’t notice the hunk of thruster that followed behind the rock. He sensed it only moments before it slammed into his leg. Not nearly enough time dodge. Barely enough time to register Karen’s voice as she alerted him to a new danger he couldn't avoid as his foot landed on an exposed power conduit.

He felt the jolt. It surged through him, stealing his breath and his thoughts, and then he was floating. He was floating, and nothing mattered, and he was staring at piece of rock leisurely drifting next to him with little webs dangling like strings on a runaway parade balloon. It was like a dream.

Until it wasn’t.

The pain came back first, like a burning sting all the way down to his bones. He couldn’t move, which was probably for the best, since all of his instincts were screaming at him to get out of the suit. He tried to call out to Karen, but all he could manage was a weird clicking in the back of his throat.

And part of him knew she wasn’t there anyway. If she were there, she’d be talking to him. Reassuring him that everything would be okay. Instead, all he heard was crackling static and a hiss that he didn’t want to believe was a puncture in the suit, leeching his air.

Peter forced himself to focus. To see beyond the boulder and the empty space that flickered in and out of his mask’s display. It reminded him of Grandma Nell’s old TV, the kind with a loud dial you had to turn to change channels and sometimes needed a good whack to the side to straighten out a wonky image.

But this wasn’t an old TV. This was his Spider-Man suit. His brand new Spider-Man suit, that Mr. Stark built for him, and he’d broken it. Tears stung his eyes and his breath came in hard choking sobs. Oh, god, he’d broken his suit, and Mr. Stark was going to be so mad at him. He wasn’t even supposed to be there! Everything felt heavy. Things weren’t supposed to be heavy in space, but all the same, Peter could feel the weight of the universe pressing into his chest, making it even harder to breathe. The edges of his vision were starting to go dark and spots danced in front of his eyes, and he didn’t think it was just because of the malfunctioning display.

And yet, for all of that, he could feel his spider-sense beginning to come back. There was something coming. Swallowing his panic, he looked as far as he could, straining his eyes until they hurt too, trying to see the blurry image making its way in his periphery. If anything, the effort made things worse. Peter closed his eyes and gulped for air that was too thin. There was a part of him that just wanted to rest. To just fall asleep and hope for the best.

But Aunt May would never forgive him if he did. Neither would Uncle Ben or his parents, so he forced his eyes open again and was met with a sight that almost made him smile. Almost.

The ship was there. He was eye-level with a cockpit window and Mr. Stark was staring at him. His eyes were wide. He looked pale, like every drop of blood had drained from his face, and for a moment the rest of his body was shocked into a rare stillness. And just like that, he sprung into action. Without taking his eyes off of him, Mr. Stark stood up and grabbed at a microphone.

_Peter? Pete, can you hear me?_

He couldn’t, truth be told — and even if he could, he didn’t think he could answer — but even with his fading vision, he could make out the words on Mr. Stark’s lips. The crinkle in his brow. The way the tips of fingers pressed against the window, reaching for him, before pulling away and dropping back into the pilot’s seat.

The last thing Peter saw was Mr. Stark’s hands flying over the ship’s controls.

* * *

 

His heart was pounding in his chest.

No. That wasn’t right.

“Come on, Pete.”

There was definitely pounding, though.

Pounding and pain and cracking bone.

“Come on, kid, don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me alone here.”

Peter could feel his head being tilted back. His mouth nudged open. Two bursts of air filled his lungs, and the pounding on his chest resumed. Was this CPR? Was he dead?

He didn’t feel dead, but he didn’t really feel alive, either. But if he were dead, he wouldn’t be able to wonder if he was or not, so the only logical conclusion was that he wasn’t. At least, his brain wasn’t. Not yet.

Two more breaths filled his lungs, and Peter definitely wasn’t dead. All his senses slammed on at once as he took a gasping, choking breath of his own. The pain, the light, the noise, it was all too much, and all he could think about were the lungs trying desperately to suck in air. He was nearing another panic, and he tried to sit up and get away, do anything, when he felt two hands on his shoulders, holding him down.

“Easy, Pete, easy,” Mr. Stark said. “Don’t try to move.” Peter focused on his voice. Tried to shut out everything else until he had some degree of control over his own functions. It wasn’t until a blurry image of Mr. Stark took shape that he thought he was in control enough to try speaking.

“I broke the suit.” His voice was low and scratchy.

“It’s okay. We’ll fix it.”

“Karen?”

“She’s fine. She’s got a restore point just before you went out, and we’ll fill in the rest for her.”

Peter nodded. It still hurt to move and all his nerves were on fire, but he could already feel his cracked ribs and sternum beginning to mend. It was only then that a thought — more like a memory — of old movies with cracked helmets and decompressing faces invaded his mind.

“My eyes…” he tried to bring a hand to his face, but Mr. Stark caught it in mid air and brought it to his own face.

“They’re fine,” he said. His lips pressed into Peter’s fingers. “They’re perfect. You’re okay.” Mr. Stark laid his other hand on Peter’s forehead and the contact sent an immediate feeling of relief and comfort through Peter. “Just rest.”

Peter nodded as best he could and let his fingers curl softly around Mr. Stark’s. Rest sounded pretty good.

* * *

 

Perfect and okay may have been overstatements.

Peter wasn’t sure how long he’d been on the deck of the hangar bay before feeling well enough to move, stand or do anything that required any degree of coordination, but Mr. Stark was still there when he took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He helped him to his feet, led him through the ship, helped him get cleaned up and into fresh clothes. And when all of that was done, Peter finally felt like he could brave the mirror.

His skin was splotchy and dry. His eyes were bloodshot to the point he saw more red than white (but thankfully still fully inside his head and not misshapen blobs), and if he stuck out his tongue it looked burned, like all the saliva in his mouth had boiled away.

No wonder everything hurt.

Just getting cleaned up had left him tired again. Mr. Stark had barely left his side and that didn’t change when Peter fell into bed, his back propped up against the back of a wardrobe that served as a headboard. Mr. Stark settled in next to him, and Peter didn’t have the energy or desire to complain. And when he draped an arm over his shoulders, it didn’t take any time at all for Peter to lean into his side, head resting on his shoulder.

He must have dozed off again, because when he woke up, finally starting to feel normal, he found himself still next to Mr. Stark, warm and comfortable as he breathed in the smell of laundry detergent. He’d curled around Mr. Stark with one hand resting gently on his chest. Now it just felt like cloth and flesh and bone, but Peter couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like to be so close when Mr. Stark still had the arc reactor over his heart.

The thought made his fingers twitch. Mr. Stark must have thought it was part of a bad dream, because the arm draped over Peter’s shoulders shifted, bending at the elbow until the tips of his fingers stroked gently through Peter’s hair. Peter nestled in closer and sighed.

He was good at pretending to be asleep. He had plenty of practice during Aunt May and Uncle Ben’s frequent check-ins on him after his parents died. He loved it at first, because he was usually awake and one or both of them would sit with him and hold him and cry with him and make him not feel so alone. But after a while it began to feel stifling. Childish. And he was a child, sure, but there was a difference between being a child and being childish. And even at a young age, the constant consoling attention was enough to make Peter feel like a baby. And that was something his parents had never done. And so, eventually, when he heard the door creak open and saw the thin streak of light blocked only by the shapes of his aunt or uncle, he stopped opening his eyes. Stopped turning toward them or reaching for them, and held back the tears he knew would pull them into the room.

He pretended to be asleep so they would go away. So he could sit awake in the real world they wanted to comfort him from. Now, he pretended to be asleep to live in a dream a little longer, listening to Mr. Stark’s heart beat and the steady draw of his breaths. Finally, keeping his body still and his breathing steady, he eased one eye open.

In his free hand, Mr. Stark held a tablet low with his fist resting on a knee. The screen was tilted back to create a little more distance. _He probably has reading glasses at home_ , Peter thought. Different from the lightly tinted aviator shades he’d worn the first time Peter saw the Iron Spider suit. He wondered if they were like the thick-rimmed glasses he’d sometimes see Mr. Stark sporting in photographs and video from events and press conferences. He’d always assumed they were for fashion — especially given the way he’d whip them off for emphasis — or maybe hiding a discreet interface with his AI, but there was something charming, almost normal, about the idea of the Tony Stark, stretched out in a luxurious bed with a pair of simple glasses resting on the bridge of his nose as he read through reports of the day or a pulpy novel. Maybe something nonfiction? Like a history text? Or plans for his next big thing.

Peter focused in on the tablet. A diagram of the suit was actually on the display. Mr. Stark’s thumb swiped upward as he scrolled through the damage report. Peter didn’t have the right angle to make out the words and curiosity was beginning to consume him.

Pretending to wake up was a little more complicated than pretending to be asleep. Peter let his eye slide shut again, and took a deep breath through his nose, stirring only slightly. Mr. Stark shifted beneath him and Peter exhaled with a sigh and stretched as his eyes opened. Mr. Stark shifted away, giving him room to sit up. Peter ran a hand over his face.

“How long was I out?”

“About three h-” Mr. Stark stopped mid sentence, staring at Peter’s face. “That’s amazing.”

“What?”

“It’s like,” Mr. Stark raised a hand to Peter’s face, stopping just before touching him, and pulling his hand back. “It’s like nothing happened.” Peter smiled and did a mini-jazz hands.

“Yay, Spider-Man,” he said softly. Mr. Stark grinned, and Peter could hear a puff of laughter as he looked away. Whether it was a laugh of amusement or relief, he didn’t know, but he’d take it. He gestured toward the tablet. “What are you reading?”

“Suit diagnostics. You know, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.”

“Can we fix it?”

“Should be ale to.”

And so that was what they spent the rest of the day doing. They took a break when Peter’s stomach rumbled, and he still couldn’t believe that, from their perspective, they’d been through everything that had happened and it was still only early afternoon. Lunch was short and sweet and then they were back at it. The end result left them with a suit that probably shouldn’t be used for spacewalks and only had two extra legs, but it fit and it worked and Karen was back inside, and before they knew it, the ship's lights were dimming as Karen did her best to keep them on Earth time when day and night were meaningless constructs.

Peter let out a huge yawn as he set the suit back up in the workspace, just waiting for him to need to step inside again.

“Ugh, I can’t believe I’m so tired already,” he said.

“Well, you had a pretty big day,” Mr. Stark said.

That was true, Peter guessed, even though by then you wouldn’t have known it to look at him. They had a small dinner and soon they were back in bed, trying to sleep.

It wasn’t easy. Since the first time he’d crawled in Mr. Stark’s bed, he’d always been on the outside, facing a small window. He’d found the space and stars to be an odd comfort for their bizarre situation. Like the glow-in-the-dark stickers his dad stuck on the ceiling when was little.

That was before he’d been stuck out there. Peter shuddered and closed his eyes to the view. But even then, sleep wasn’t easy to come by as Mr. Stark shifted, tossed and turned restlessly, finally landing flat on his back.

“Damn it,” he said softly.

“What?” Peter answered, unmoving. There was silence. Peter flipped to his other side and opened his eyes to find Mr. Stark staring at the ceiling, his hands balled into fists in the sheets. “What?” he asked again, with a touch of concern.

“Pollen.”

“Oh. How bad is it?”

“It’s not great.”

Peter frowned. They’d been on the ship for a while, and Mr. Stark had finally started to get … well, not comfortable … but accepting of the situation. He’d started recognizing when the pollen was exerting its influence and had been more open about heading off the urges before they grew unbearable. This seemed like a backslide.

“You couldn’t tell? Earlier, I mean?”

Mr. Stark exhaled sharply and turned onto his side to look at Peter.

“I thought I was just worried about you,” he said. For a moment, Peter looked at him in stunned silence.

“You don’t … you don’t have to worry about me,” he said.

“On the contrary,” Mr. Stark said with a certain degree of levity to his voice, “I was informed in no uncertain terms that if anything happened to you, my balls would become permanent residents in your aunt’s handbag.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Peter said. “She’d totally find some old beater car from the 70s for $300 and hang them from the rear view mirror like fuzzy dice.”

Mr. Stark couldn’t hold back a laugh. He ducked his head down to try to hide it, but Peter could see the glint of his teeth. Could practically feel the smile. Peter reached over to Mr. Stark and laid a hand over his, moving his fingers over his, like if he could just find the right stroke or circle it would release his grip on the sheet. Eventually, it worked. Their fingers laced together and Mr. Stark raised his eyes back to Peter’s face.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“You won’t.” Peter tried to sound reassuring, but he couldn’t tell if it worked. “I mean, look at me. Spider-Man, here. Super-healing, and all that? If I can handle cosmic radiation and the vacuum of space, I think I’ve got you covered.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

The smile faded from Peter’s lips as he nodded and looked away. For a moment, they just sat in the silent enormity of their situation.

“Can I tell you something?” Peter finally asked.

“Yeah. Anything.”

Peter nibbled on the inside of his lips as he tried to find the right words.

“So, there’s this girl at school that I like,” he began. “Michelle — MJ — we actually, we kissed once on an academic decathlon trip, and before … before everything in the city, she asked me to meet her at an exhibit at the Met. It’s right near one of the things we were going to see, and it’s kind of dark and shadowy, and I’m pretty sure we were going make out a little bit, which I was really looking forward, too honestly-”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“I liked kissing her,” Peter said. “I mean, we only did it the once, and I didn’t really have anything to compare it to, but I liked it. But I also know that not all first kisses end in true love. I know I’m not her type, and if I didn’t totally misread things, we’d totally just be about having some fun.”

“Is there a point in all of this?” 

“My point is that I don’t know that we’re end-game, me and MJ,” Peter said in a rush. “Because, I mean, I liked kissing her, but I also … I don’t not like what … you know … what we’ve been up to. And I mean, maybe-”

“Pete, are you trying to tell me you swing both ways? Because I kind of got that from ‘Han Solo’s peak hotness’.”

“I’m trying to say thank you!” Peter said more forcefully than he intended, only to lapse into a silence as he turned Mr. Stark’s words over in his head. There was a part of him that had hoped that his little Han Solo slip-up had gone unnoticed, and a piece of him was mortified that it not only was noticed but was retained.

“ ‘Thank you’?” Mr. Stark repeated, almost disbelievingly. “For what?”

Peter swallowed. He could feel a slight tremble wanting to work its way through his fingers.

“Because…” he paused. No more jokes. It was time to get real. “Because you’re not wrong,” he said. “I do, I guess. Swing both ways, I mean.”

“That’s okay.” Mr. Stark’s voice was calm and gentle. More so than Peter had ever heard before.

“Yeah, I know,” Peter said. “On some level, I know. Especially since my generation is supposed to be the one that’s all about diversity and being yourself. But I just … I didn’t want to be different. Again. And I couldn’t say it. I was only just barely starting to let myself think it.”

Mr. Stark’s brow crinkled, like he was still trying to work out just how any of this amounted to gratitude for him. Peter took another breath and continued.

“I think I was probably looking at years before I could really reconcile everything in my head. Years. And by then I’m in college, you know, trying to figure out just who I am, and then the next thing you know, my first time is in a frat house bathroom with a half drunk sweaty jock named Jeff or something and that’s just not good for anybody. At least now … look, I know none of this is ideal. We’re both victims of circumstance, but all cards on the table, there’s a part of me that’s glad. Because instead of half-drunk bathroom sex with Jeff, I got to be with someone I know. Someone I trust.”

Mr. Stark stared at his hands for a moment.

“First time, huh?”

Peter shrugged. “A lot of firsts. And they all had to come sometime.”

“I’m sorry.” It was Peter’s turn to furrow his brow at Mr. Stark.

“For what?”

“It shouldn’t have been like that.” Mr. Stark reached over and brushed a strand of hair from Peter’s face. Peter leaned into the gesture.

“Some of it — maybe even most of it — was pretty good,” he said. “I mean, seemed that way to me, at least.”

“Yeah, well. Not like you have anything to compare it too, right?” It was a joking tone, but it fell flat to both their ears. “And you deserve better,” he continued, much more seriously. “Better than me, and definitely better than frat house bathroom sex, what even?”

Peter could have said anything. Turned it into a joke about some movie or a roast of the guy who certainly had to know his way around some drunk bathroom sex, or anything. Instead he reached up and laid a hand over fingers that still rested at his cheek.

“Show me,” he said. Mr. Stark tried to pull away, but Peter tightened his grip. “Show me.” They were already close, and Peter barely had to move to press his lips lightly against Mr. Stark’s. “Please?”

Whatever ill-advised resolve Mr. Stark had been clinging to crumbled. His breath was audible as he leaned forward, capturing Peter’s lips in his own, turning their bodies until Peter was stretched out on his back. His kisses were hard and biting at first, full of lust and need as his hips rocked against Peter’s thigh. But then he slowed. Pulled back.

“Sorry,” he said through gulping breaths. Peter shook his head.

“Don’t be.” He ran his fingers up Mr. Stark’s sides and was surprised by the squirmy laugh the action produced as Mr. Stark leaned down for another kiss, this one softer and lighter and followed by more that trailed across Peter’s cheek and down his neck until they came to rest at the hollow of his throat, wet and warm and everything he thought a kiss should be.

Mr. Stark leaned back, sat on his knees and pulled Peter up and onto his lap. Fingers tugged at the hem of his shirt, and Peter raised his arms, allowing the garment to be removed in one easy motion and tossed to the floor. Mr. Stark wrapped his arms around him. The pads of his fingers pressed into Peter’s shoulder blades as his mouth returned to Peter’s neck, kissed his clavicle and finally landed at his nipple. His tongue swirled hot and his teeth teased gently in a way that made Peter gasp and clench at the fabric of Mr. Stark’s T-shirt. A hand slid down and dipped beneath his waistband, caressing his backside.

“Wait,” Peter leaned back. “Wait, just a second.” He grinned, planted a quick kiss on Mr. Stark’s lips and hopped out of bed. “I’ll be right back.”

Peter sprinted down the hall, barefoot, half-hard, nearly naked and not even caring as he slid into the med bay and dug through all the drawers and containers until he found a small squeeze bottle. Peter turned back to the bay’s workbench and glass jar of liquid. It had only been a day, but it seemed so long since he’d been experimenting in the lab. Carefully, he transferred the liquid from the jar to the bottle, screwed on the cap and raced back to the bedroom.

Mr. Stark looked up when Peter burst through the door.

“Where’d you go?”

“Just grabbing a little something.” Peter tossed the bottle to Mr. Stark, who caught it one-handed and gave a stare.

“Is this lube?”

“Yep.”

“Where’d you get…” His words trailed off as he frowned at the bottle.

“Made it. There’s all kinds of stuff here.”

Mr. Stark looked up at him sharply.

“Pete, I know Quill was from Earth once upon a time, but this is still an alien ship full of alien stuff. You can’t just take any old thing and-”

“Oh, come on,” Peter said, shooting him a look, all pursed lips and squinty-eyed that Aunt May would have labeled Sassy Face #2, and something about it made Mr. Stark’s mouth snap shut. “Hi,” he continued with a little wave. “Peter Parker here. You may have the market on mechanics and engineering, but I make my own super-strong spider webs that can hoist cars. You don’t think I can analyze, separate and reconfigure a few compounds? This is what I do. And that’s just water, glycerin, something that was almost chemically identical to ginger — good for circulation, by the way — and some peppermint I extracted from my secret emergency gum stash. That one’s just for fun.”

Mr. Stark stared at him, and whatever confidence Peter felt heading into that diatribe began to waver. He had a working theory, see. It was basically that Spider-Man could get just about anything and anyone he wanted. He was a superhero with a hot bod in a tight suit. Peter Parker, on the other hand, had to work harder at it. Because absent everything else, he was just a nerd buried in layers of flannel and cotton who loved Legos and old movies and chemistry and had a brain too big for his own good. At a school built for nerds, he and Ned still managed to find themselves stuck on the outside, staring in at all the kids more popular than them.

But there was something different in the way Mr. Stark looked at him. Like a bit of confident nerdy talk turned him on more than the filthiest of dirty talk ever could. And that was when Peter realized there was probably a time when Mr. Stark was the biggest nerd in the room. A lifetime had tempered it with bravado and sex appeal, but that streak was still there. Without taking his eyes off Peter, Mr. Stark flipped the cap and dripped the liquid onto his fingers, rubbing them together.

“How is it?”

Mr. Stark looked at his hand.

“It’s not bad.”

“Not bad? You know I spent all morning on that.” Peter crawled back into bed, straddling Mr. Stark’s knees.

“Yeah, well. Rome wasn’t built in a morning.”

Peter snorted. He could feel his breath bounce of Mr. Stark’s neck as he leaned in close. “Jerk,” he whispered before sliding his tongue around the ridge of his ear.

“Well if you want to, I can’t really stop you, can I?” As soon as he said it, Mr. Stark pulled back and away, perhaps stunned at the innuendo that had fallen from his lips. But Peter had already reached out, swiping up as much as the lube as he could. He gasped as Peter’s hand disappeared into his pants, grasped his cock and began long, easy strokes.

Mr. Stark leaned back on his arms. His eyes fluttered closed and Peter couldn’t stop staring at the length of his lashes, the artfully messy hair and jawline accentuated with impeccable grooming. His lips parted with a sigh, and Peter had never wanted to kiss something more. He leaned in, but the shifting position made him acutely aware of the drying fluid in his palm. And Peter knew just what to do about it as his mouth watered in anticipation. Shifting again, he pulled his hand out from Mr. Stark’s pants, grabbed the waistband and pulled. Mr. Stark raised his hips, freeing himself from the fabric and Peter bent down, licking and kissing and feeling his own twinge of arousal as Mr. Stark breathed deeply.

But the angle was off. It strained at Peter’s neck and limited his reach. He shifted again, curling his body around Mr. Stark’s and positioning his head in his lap, he was able to take all of him. To savor the feeling as Mr. Stark tensed and squirmed and grasped at Peter’s hair before sliding down his neck across his back and finally pulling at his pajama bottoms.

His hands were warm — Mr. Stark was always warm — and Peter felt calm and relaxed as the cap flipped open again. The liquid was freezing by comparison as it dripped onto his skin.

Mr. Stark was slow and gentle, almost methodical as he ran his hands over Peter. He hadn’t even pushed inside yet, but the contact alone gave him a pleasant buzz  that reminded him of the time he and Ned sneaked some wine coolers from Ned’s sister’s bachelorette party. Mr. Stark’s pace quickened against him and Peter whimpered around his cock.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Peter said as he pulled back, gasping for air and bringing his head to rest at Mr. Stark’s thigh. “Feels good.”

“Good.” Mr. Stark stilled and then there was pressure and with a gasp from Peter he was through. Peter remembered the first time they were like this. Bent over a cold table, there had been a sense of urgency and need as Mr. Stark hurried to get him just ready enough as the pollen held him in its grip. Peter didn’t know if this was atonement or the pollen manifesting in new ways, but Mr. Stark seemed in control with every motion slow and deliberate, pushing him, filling him, stretching him until Peter could barely think straight. And then, slowly, he withdrew.

“How ya feel, Pete?”

“Amazing,” Peter breathed.

Mr. Stark pulled Peter up, his whole body felt like butter that could just melt into Mr. Stark’s skin if he stayed there long enough. They were cheek to cheek, with Mr. Stark’s lips at Peter’s ear.

“Can I…”

“Whatever you need,” Peter finished for him. “Anything you want.”

Mr. Stark shifted, maneuvering Peter until they were both lying on their sides, spooned together. Mr. Stark’s arms wrapped around his torso and his mouth left sloppy kisses on his shoulders. A leg slipped between his knees, and it wasn’t long until Peter’s top leg found itself resting over Mr. Stark’s hip. He moved an arm from around Peter’s body and shifted his own just slightly. He was lining up, Peter realized, and his heart began to race as the memory of the med bay came back to him. Mr. Stark’s cock pressed against him, and when he pushed inside, he let out a sigh that couldn’t quite cover the whine Peter couldn’t hold back.

“You’re okay,” Mr. Stark whispered into his ear. His hand returned to Peter’s body, holding him tightly as his hips rocked up. “You’re okay. Right? You’re okay?” He slowed, was maybe about to pull out when Peter freed an arm as best he could and laid his hand on Mr. Stark’s forearm before stretching backward to graze whatever skin he could reach.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Keep going.”

The carelessly rough choppy thrusts of the med bay were gone, replaced with thoughtful motion as Mr. Stark glided through him with every breath hot against his neck. He pulled out and Peter felt a shiver of disappointment. He didn’t know if it was comfort from knowing each other better or acceptance of the situation or something in between or entirely separate, but what he had wanted so badly to be over in the med bay and was scared of only moments before now was something he wasn’t ready to be done with yet.

The cap flipped open. The corner of Peter’s mouth ticked up. A cheeky _How do you like it now?_  died on his lips as Mr. Stark moaned before entering again.

“How is it?” he murmured instead.

“It’s good,” Mr. Stark said between breaths. “God, it’s so good.” He brought his hand back to Peter’s chest. A smear of leftover lube slid across his skin and Peter couldn’t help but grin. Mr. Stark’s hold on him tightened, his hands resting over Peter’s heart. His injuries from the space walk had completely healed — and the cracked bones from Mr. Stark’s CPR had been some of the first to mend, but it had been less than a day, Peter realized. Less than a day since he’d been floating adrift in space. Less than a day since he thought he might die out there. He was eye level with the window.

Peter squeezed his eyes shut. He pushed the spacewalk out of his mind. He pushed out the med bay and Thanos and the weird doughnut ship on Bleeker Street, and everything else until all that was left was this. Him and Mr. Stark. A tangle of limbs and warmth and fullness and a connection unlike any Peter had experienced before.

He focused on that and felt safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long wait! I cribbed this chapter title from the Indian poem "Where the Mind Is Without Fear" (Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo) by Rabindranath Tagore, which might be a little inappropriate given our very different topics, but it's a good poem and I can live with that. Read it (and about it) here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitto_Jetha_Bhayshunyo


	10. A Cut Above

“Is this thing on?"

"Hey Miss Potts,” Mr. Stark said into the battered Iron Man helmet. Peter had been on his way to ask him something about he couldn't even remember what now when he heard Mr. Stark's voice, low and measured. He knew he should have turned back; let Mr. Stark have his private moment, but he couldn't move.

“Look, I don’t know when you’ll get this — or even if you’ll get it," Mr. Stark continued, "but I wanted to let you know that I didn’t turn into a pile of dust or blow up on a space ship.” He paused. Peter could hear him swallow and take a breath that had just the faintest of shakes to it before continuing. “But here’s the thing. I’m on a ship. The kid’s with me. I told him to go home, but he listens about as well as I do.” Mr. Stark chuckled, and Peter didn’t need to see him to know that he was looking down at his hands with a fading smile on his face.

“I’m trying to get us home,” he continued, “but we took some damage to our oxygen tank. We patched it up — he patched it up, really, I was just the moral support — but what was plenty of air,” Mr. Stark took a deep breath. “I crunched some numbers, and now, I don’t think it’s going to be enough.”

Peter’s breath caught in his throat. Just the thought of what his words meant was enough to make him light-headed, but he leaned against the wall and breathed deeply — maybe not too deeply — and squeezed his eyes shut until he was able to focus on Mr. Stark’s voice again.

“Listen, Pep, if I…” Mr. Stark paused again. Peter could hear a slight scritch as he ran his hands through his hair. “Damn it,” he continued, the utterance surely almost too quiet for the recording. His next words were louder. “I told him … I promised I’d…”

Mr. Stark’s voice broke, and it took all of Peter’s resolve to stay still and quiet in the corridor. What would he say if he went in there? What would he do with knowledge of a conversation he wasn’t supposed to overhear? He didn’t have much time to think about it before Mr. Stark was speaking again.

“Pete’s getting home, one way or another,” he said, his voice full of resolve. “He’s got an aunt in Queens, and if I don’t make it, I need you to make sure they’re taken care of. He’s so special, Pepper, you have no idea. He is smart and strong and just…he’s better than me. Better than all of us, and I don’t think he has any clue.”

There was silence again as Mr. Stark gathered the last of his thoughts.

“I haven’t told him,” he finally said. “About the air, I mean. The other, too, but that specifically. I can’t decide if not knowing would be kind or cruel.” Mr. Stark snorted out a puff of air that was almost a laugh. “I should, I guess. Kid’ll probably find a way to grow a tree in the cockpit or something.”

* * *

 

It was more like a moss than a tree.

After overhearing Mr. Stark’s recording, Peter went straight to the lab, pulling up every file he could find about all the biomatter on the ship. He was in the middle of studying the mulch surrounding the weird purple fruit in the mess when Mr. Stark tapped on the door and stepped in.

“Hey, Mr. Stark.”

“Hey.” Mr. Stark eased into a chair opposite Peter and drummed his fingers lightly on the table before speaking again. “Listen kid, there’s something we need to talk about.” Peter pushed the display away and propped his elbows up on the table.

“What’s up?”

For a moment, Mr. Stark just stared at him. Like he was mapping his face in case he never got to see it again.

“There’s a problem with the air tanks,” his finally said.

Peter listened as Mr. Stark went over everything he’d left in the message for Miss Potts. He knew exactly what was coming. He was prepared. But as Mr. Stark spoke softly and gently about staying for as long as there was enough air for two, Peter couldn’t stop the lump forming in his throat or the tears that welled up in his eyes.

“You’ll be fine,” Mr. Stark said. “Autopilot and Karen can get you back to Earth. We’ll go over landings before…” Mr. Stark trailed off, unable to finish the thought. “And anyway, comms should be good once you’re within range. Rhodey’ll probably find you and give you a War Machine escort.” He tried to laugh, but couldn’t. Maybe it was the realization of all the things and people he’d never see again.

“What if…what if it didn’t have to be that way?” Peter said. “The CO2 scrubbers-”

“Are already taxed,” Mr. Stark said. “They’re going full bore, and even if we don’t overload them, at some point there’s just not going to be enough air left to filter.”

“But what if we could help it,” Peter said as he turned his screen around to face Mr. Stark. “I’ve been looking at some of the plant life on the ship, and I think we can make something work.”

Mr. Stark pulled the display closer and frowned at it, swiping from screen to screen.

“You were already working on this?” he asked. Peter shrugged.

“We’re trapped on half a space ship with no TV. I got bored.”

Mr. Stark looked up at him, eyes widening and a smile beginning to spread on his face.

“This could work.”

* * *

 

In the end, it took mulch from the purple fruit, a few other kitchen staples, fuel and even a component of the sex pollen _carefully_ extracted to create the moss: plant life that fed on carbon dioxide and its own matter to produce oxygen. Its lifespan was short, but it worked, reducing strain on the scrubbers by 50 percent and potentially adding enough to their oxygen supply to get them both home.

The next contraption was Mr. Stark’s idea: A distribution device that would serve as veins, allowing the moss to be contained, but travel along the walls of ship instead of being confined to the med bay. He theorized that spreading it out would extend its life further as it pulled more carbon dioxide from other parts of the ship and relied less on itself for food as it grew.

They had to harvest metal from the rest of the ship. Most of the walls were left with sections of exposed panel, revealing the pipes and wires that ran beneath. The wall coverings were broken down, reshaped and turned into new casings for the moss to grow. Peter was working on T-junction when a lock of hair fell into his eyes.

For the third time.

He pushed it out of his face and bent over the metal again. He’d needed a haircut before the field trip, and the time on the ship had only made it more unmanageable. He was just threading the last screw when he felt the strands sweep across his forehead before landing promptly in front of his field of vision.

For the fourth time.

“Damn it!” Peter tossed his tools on the table with a clang.

“Are you okay?” Mr. Stark looked up quickly, his eyes landed first at Peter’s hands -- probably looking for cuts or burns — before traveling up to his face, as if a flying shard or a spark might have caused harm. His eyes squinted and he cocked his head. “What’s wrong?”

“My hair is driving me nuts,” Peter said.

“Are you serious right now?”

“I mean look at this!” Peter ran his fingers through his hair, puling all the way to the tips before letting it flop back down in his face. “Sheepdogs don't have to deal with this.” Even with his vision obscured by a curtain of hair, Peter could make out Mr. Stark looking away, trying to hide a laugh.

“So cut it,” he finally said.

“Oh, that’s a bad idea,” Peter said. He stuck out a lip and huffed, clearing his vision momentarily. “When I was five, I got a hold of my mom’s kitchen shears…it was a nightmare. No saving it. She tried but-” Peter stopped midsentence as an idea formed. “Hey, maybe you could cut it.”

If Mr. Stark had tried to hide his laugh before, he made no such effort this time.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“Why not?”

Mr. Stark laid down the tool he’d been using and stared at Peter.

“Well, for starters, I’m a scientist and an engineer and a superhero, not a stylist.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that,” Peter said with a smile. “I was too distracted by your meticulously groomed face; have you looked in a mirror lately?”

“I don’t know Peter…”

“Look, worst case scenario,” Peter interrupted, “you do just as bad as anything I’d do — unlikely, by the way -- and the only option is to shave everything off and start over, in which case, hey. For a few weeks I’ll know what it’ll look like if I join the Army.”

Mr. Stark frowned at him for a moment before shaking his head in resignation.

“All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

* * *

 

Peter stared at the gray metal wall as hair fell down his shoulders and slid off the sheet Mr. Stark had draped over him. At first it had felt like he was just cutting by the fistful and for a second Peter regretted everything.

“Worried?” Mr. Stark asked, and there was something in his voice, a joking tone that eased Peter’s mind.

“Nah,” Peter said. “Just ready to be done.”

Mr. Stark huffed, maybe just a little disappointed he didn’t get the reaction he was going for. Peter closed his eyes and breathed deeply as Mr. Stark’s hand ran across his scalp, tugging through his hair until a few ends peeked between his fingers and were snipped away. For a moment, everything was silent and peaceful and Peter wondered if anyone had ever fallen asleep while getting a haircut.

“Hey, did you mean what you said back there?” Mr. Stark asked, like it was a question he’d been holding on to all day.

“Back where?”

“When we were working on the moss system, and you said if you had to shave your head, you’d know how it’d look if you joined the Army. Is that something you’re thinking about?”

Peter cocked his head slightly before Mr. Stark repositioned him. No one had really asked him about his future plans. May made noise about colleges in between worrying about Spider-Man. His guidance counselor had not only assumed but started shoving potential majors at him after their first meeting. But no one had ever actually asked.

“I don’t know,” Peter said. “There were some recruiters on campus a few weeks ago, and I didn’t want to just dismiss it out of hand. It’s not just ground pounders and button-pushers. They need scientists and mechanics and engineers just as much as anybody.”

“Yeah-”

Peter rushed ahead. He could hear the silent ‘but’ on the tip of Mr. Stark’s tongue and he wasn’t ready to be talked out of something he hadn’t even fully considered yet.

“Besides,” he said quickly. “My uncle spent four years in the Army and they paid for most his college. My grandpa retired a chief master sergeant and my great-grandma flew new planes to military bases during World War II. There’s a history of service in my family, you know? Why not me?”

Mr. Stark was silent for a moment; the sound of scissors and the hum of the ship’s engine were all that filled the room until he finally spoke.

“You know,” he said. “Not to besmirch your family’s record — cool about your great-grandma, by the way — or denigrate your own patriotism, I guess, but if you’d only be doing it for that sweet, sweet government money, you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Why, are you going to send me college, Mr. Stark?” Peter said through a snorted laugh.

“Well, yeah,” Mr. Stark said, like it was the most obvious answer in the world. “College. Grad school. Backpack across Europe. Whatever you want.”

Peter leaned forward until the section of hair Mr. Stark had been working on fell from his fingers and craned his head around with a frown.

“I did…I didn’t ask you to do that,” he said.

“I know.”

“Why?”

Mr. Stark laid a hand on Peter’s shoulder and pulled him back into the chair before maneuvering his head forward again.

“Do you know what I was doing when I was your age?”

“Working on your first doctorate?” Peter retorted.

“Finishing up a bachelor’s actually, in between parties and the first several of many questionable life choice- … you know what, I’m a bad example. Do you know what most people your age are doing right now?”

Peter thought for a moment and shrugged his shoulders. Probably not getting a haircut from a billionaire on a space ship.

“They’re playing sports,” Mr. Stark continued. “Or an instrument or doing volunteer work, or **actually going to their academic decathlon contests** ,” he said loudly and pointedly in Peter’s ear. “All things that look great on college and scholarship applications.”

Peter looked down at his hands. The counselor had chastised him once for his staggeringly slim array of extracurriculars, but he didn’t know the whole story, Peter rationalized as he left the office and made an early patrol through the neighborhood. It hadn’t carried the same weight as it did coming from Mr. Stark.

“But here’s what they’re not doing,” Mr. Stark continued. “They’re not swinging from rooftops on homemade string at all hours of the day and night or fighting crime the cops could never get to in time. And they’re certainly not stowing away on alien ships to try to save a wizard.” Mr. Stark paused for a moment while his words sunk in. “All the things you could be doing, Pete, and you sacrifice it to protect people who can’t protect themselves. You don’t ask for a reward — hell you don’t even ask for credit — you just do it because it’s the right thing to do. And I think that should count for something. So, whatever you want to do with your life, don’t worry about the how. That part’s handled.”

“Thank you,” Peter said, far softer than he intended.

“Don’t mention it.” Mr. Stark snipped another piece of hair. “I mean, seriously, don’t mention it. I get enough flak for putting a high-schooler in my intern pool as it is.” Peter could practically feel Mr. Stark’s smile, and it made a slow grin form across his face, too. There was just one problem.

“What if I don’t know what I want to do?”

Mr. Stark stopped cutting, was thoughtful for a moment, and finally spoke.

“Well, then you’re in pretty good company,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

Mr. Stark laid the scissors down and picked up a pair of clippers. He was buying time, Peter realized as they buzzed by his left ear and then his right, cleaning up edges the scissors couldn’t quite manage. Then there was silence.

“One of the last things I talked to Pepper about before…all of this…was having a kid. I thought we should have a kid.”

“No way! A little Mini Stark running around New York? That’d be so awesome!”

“Would it?” Mr. Stark asked. There was a doubt in his voice gave Peter pause.

“Well…yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”

“I think history will bear out that I’m not a paragon of good decision-making,” Mr. Stark said. “And I wasn’t close at all with my own father. So, what do I know about being a dad, for one. But then I started to ask myself why. The world was a mess before we left, can’t imagine what it’s like now. Why would I bring a kid into that? To give my already sizable ego a boost? To ensure I have a legacy? Look, I’ve never claimed to not be selfish, but that’s a bit much even for me.”

The clippers buzzed to life again as Mr. Stark finished up. When he was done, he leaned forward and blew across Peter’s neck, sending the last stubborn trimmings into the air. His breath was cool and gentle, a stark contrast to the warmth radiating from his body, and it stirred something in Peter that he had to grip the arms of the chair to contain.

Mr. Stark pulled back. Peter could hear him rifling around the work table he’d set up and opening containers of this and that. It gave him time to think, and when Mr. Stark’s hands returned to his head, slightly goopy with Peter didn’t want to know what, he spoke.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I think you’d make a good dad. And people have been having kids during bad times kind of forever. It’s sort of what we do. And who knows why? As long a you want them, you’ll love them, and you stand a chance of keeping them alive, what does it really matter why?”

Mr. Stark gave a noncommittal hum as his hands worked through Peter’s hair.

“But I mean, kid or no kid, I don’t think you have to worry about your legacy,” Peter said.

“Yeah, nothing like weapons of mas destruction, murder bots and wanton disregard for life and public property to make you look good.”

Peter turned around again, deep lines furrowed his brow.

“Is that how you think people see you?”

Mr. Stark shrugged and turned Peter back around.

“I don’t think that’s what anyone sees,” Peter said. “You’re Iron Man. You saved New York from aliens and its own government. You’ve done more to advance clean energy than anyone since electricity became mainstream. And when you make mistakes, you own them. You shutter your biggest moneymaker. You clean up your messes, even when it costs-” Peter stopped himself, acutely aware of the treacherous water surrounding everything — everyone — Mr. Stark had lost in Russia.

“I’m just saying,” he continued, “I’d bet everything in my pocket that anyone who matters only sees a good, genius guy and a big damn hero when they think about Tony Stark.” Silence. Mr. Stark moved his hands from Peter’s hair, and he could feel his weight leaning on the back of the chair. “Of course, I’ve got $1.82 in my pocket and have been an Iron Man fanboy for as long as I can remember, so what do I know.”

Mr. Stark laughed deeply as he snaked an arm around Peter. He might have just been going for the pin that held the sheet closed, but for just a moment it felt like an embrace close enough for Mr. Stark to press his lips to the top of Peter’s head before sweeping the sheet off with a flourish, stepping back and spinning the chair around so fast, he had to haul Peter out of it before it did a 360.

“I think you’re done,” he said as he navigated Peter toward a mirror before turning his attention and a broom to the floor around them.

Peter stepped up to the mirror for a closer look. His hair was shorter on the sides and in the back, neat and blended with a top and front that was short enough to stay out of his eyes and just long enough to muss, tousle, style and grab.

It was perfect, and Peter hadn't really expected it to be anything less.


	11. Two Steps Forward...

It had been months on the ship. Peter hadn’t expected it to take this long, not when the first journey had seemed so fast. But it was the adrenaline, the adventure, probably tech this little ship couldn’t even dream of having and that they could have studied for all these months and still not understood, that made up the difference, Mr. Stark said.

“Welcome to real-world Earth-ish science, where nothing’s ever as fast as you want it to be, even for me. Less so, for me,” Mr. Stark had said. But it was of little comfort as boredom began to set in. Peter had learned how to fly the ship for real. He’d helped Mr. Stark finish repairs on on the Iron Man suit — at this point they were really just gauntlets and boots that restored his low flight potential and gave him meager weaponry, but it was better than nothing.

And he’d had plenty of time to stand in the cockpit and grow weary of the endless black of space and flecks of distant stars. It didn’t frighten him anymore, though, which was something. He’d grown accustomed to a lot of things in the last few months, which is probably why — even though he hadn’t heard Mr. Stark come in and his spider-sense didn’t offer even one iota of a twitch — he barely moved when a pair of arms wrapped around him and lips pressed against his neck. Peter cocked his head to the left as Mr. Stark’s kisses traveled to his ear.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Space,” Peter said. “I thought it’d be prettier.”

“View looks pretty good from here,” Mr. Stark said. His hands slid down the sleeves of Peter’s newest ensemble. “I mean it. This looks nice.”

Peter smiled and leaned into Mr. Stark’s embrace. He’d found the new clothes the day before after realizing he couldn’t take another hour in an over-sized T-shirt and leather pants or jeans rolled about three inches and held up with a belt he had to punch extra holes in. He’d been desperate, had pulled every scrap of clothes from the wardrobe and was minutes away from asking Karen if she had any files on sewing or tailoring when he saw a notch in the back bottom corner of the wardrobe, barely visible behind a dust bunny.

A little poking and prying revealed a secret compartment. There wasn’t much in it. Shattered pieces of an old cassette tape, scraps of a child’s flannel shirt. And a box. The clothes were inside, along with a bottle that could have been some sort of alien space wine, a few photographs of green-skinned people and a scrap of paper that had been folded and unfolded so many times it had become soft like felt at the creases. Words were scrawled on, crossed out and crammed in the margins so heavily that it would have been unreadable if not for his years deciphering Ned’s notes. 

But the gist was simple. Quill had done some digging, found Gamora’s planet and paid it a visit. She thought she’d lost everything to Thanos, but it turned out an aunt and a cousin had made it. They were happy to have a visitor and happier still to know Gamora had survived her abduction. They’d given gifts to pass on to her. The photographs of her family, salvaged from wreckage, the drink and the clothes — traditional dress for their people and hard to find anywhere else. Quill had been holding them for months. He’d thought it would just be a salvage mission. Maybe find something to remind her of home. He hadn’t expected people — let alone family — and all of a sudden he wasn’t sure if the revelation would help or if it would just open old wounds after so much time away.

It was about a thousand times more thoughtful than he would have expected from the brash man they’d met on Titan. 

Peter had carefully pulled the clothing out. The fabric was thick and sturdy, a weave of dark purples and deep oranges that fit snugly around his body. The pants and undershirt were topped with a high-band collared jacket, slim in the shoulders and wide at the wrists, that wrapped around his chest and clasped at the side, hidden beneath an elegant stretch of fabric.

And it looked good. Sure, it may have been alien. Yeah, maybe it was made for a woman. But in it, he didn’t feel like a kid in a costume or a big brother’s hand-me-downs anymore.

Mr. Stark nuzzled against him. Ran his hands down the fabric of his sleeves.

_”View looks pretty good from here. … I mean it, this looks nice.”_

Peter turned in Mr. Stark’s arms, gasped as Mr. Stark’s mouth nipped at his throat and his body pressed against his.

“That sounds like the pollen talking,” Peter said between breaths. “Did you get distracted again?”

“I don’t think so. I think it’s just getting harder to tell.”

There was a small part in the back of Peter’s brain that wanted to make a note. Run to the lab and track data points, build an algorithm and form a hypothesis for the ins and outs and hows and whys of the pollen.

But the rest of him just wanted.

Peter raised his hands, gave a gentle push on Mr. Stark’s chest until he was taking a few steps backward. It only took the slightest of maneuvering until Mr. Stark’s legs banged into the main pilot’s chair, bringing him down to the seat. Another gentle shove pushed the flight controls back just enough that Peter could slide between and settle in Mr. Stark’s lap.

For a moment Peter towered over him, and the way Mr. Stark looked up at him with some mix of awe and lust in his eyes stole his breath. And he wasn’t the only one. As Peter began to move against Mr. Stark, he watched his mouth drop open. His breaths were short and shallow, sometimes just a clicking in the back of his throat, and drove Peter further, pressing and grinding into Mr. Stark’s body until lips collided with his chest and fingers dug into the back of his jacket, scratching at the thick fabric. 

“Wait.” The word was muffled in his clothes, and Peter almost thought it was a moan until Mr. Stark wrapped a hand around his bicep and squeezed, pushing Peter back just enough. “Wait. Wait, back off a minute.”

Peter was off him in an instant, back several paces and staring with concern as Mr. Stark looked away, his chest heaving as he gulped in air. A thousand thoughts ran through Peter’s head. _Oh, god, what did I do? What’s happening? Is he okay? … Please by okay._

Mr. Stark’s hand went to his fly, undoing the buttons and slinging his pants down low on his hips. He was hard, and as he circled his thumb and forefinger just beneath the head of his cock and squeezed, Peter could see the clear liquid already starting to seep out and drip down his length.

_Oh._

_I did that._

Peter could feel heat rising through him as he licked his lips. He’d almost made Mr. Stark cream his pants, and suddenly his own clothing felt tight and restrictive. Peter’s hands went to the clasps of his jacket. It shrugged off his shoulders and the shirt beneath was off with just as little trouble. He’d just toed off his shoes when he’d noticed Mr. Stark trying not to watch from the corner of his eye. His breath had evened out and the fingers around his cock had become a fist, slowly stroking downward with just the slightest of twists at the base.

Peter took more care with the pants, sliding them down and stepping out gently. For a second he just stood there, watching and waiting. Mr. Stark gave the slightest of nods. A normal person might not have even noticed it, but Peter did, and it sent him striding forward. Slipping once again between the seat and the flight controls, he dropped to one knee, moving Mr. Stark’s hand to his cheek, his hair, his neck as he took him in his mouth, swirling around his head. He went down until he could feel it in the back of his throat and retreated. His hands grasped at the hem of Mr. Stark’s shirt. Like most of Quill’s clothing, it was loose on him, too, and it slid up easily. Peter’s mouth followed, chasing up Mr. Stark’s ribs and nipping at a pec until he had to pull back to toss the shirt away.

From his spot on Mr. Stark’s thighs, Peter could see everything, but his eyes were drawn to a singular spot on his chest. The area where the arc reactor had been was lighter than the skin around it. It didn’t flush the same way, and Peter was itching to touch it. His hand was halfway to it when he stopped.

“Can I?”

Mr. Stark nodded, and Peter laid his palm down. The skin was smooth, and for all its appearance, he could barely tell the difference as his hand passed between old and new.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not anymore. Doesn’t feel much, really. Kids in medical are working on some nerve regeneration theories.”

“Oh.” He pressed his lips to the edge of the scar. “Did you feel that?”

“A little.”

Peter smirked as his fingers raced up Mr. Stark’s sides and his tongue dragged to his earlobe, depositing a wet kiss at his jaw. 

“Did you feel that?” he asked again as Mr. Stark squirmed beneath and let out a gasping laugh before wrapping his arms around Peter and pulling him close. 

It was only after Peter’s tickle assault was abated and both their breaths returned to normal that his arms loosened. From that position, Peter had to hunch to kiss Mr. Stark, but god was it worth it as their lips met, their tongues tangled together and Mr. Stark’s hands traveled down his body and squeezed his backside. Peter was lost in his scent, his taste, his touch. Everything was Mr. Stark, and it made his whole body tingle.

And then Mr. Stark’s hands were gone, shifted away to dig into a pocket until he pulled out a squeeze bottle of the lube Peter had perfected. He flipped the cap, but before he could do anything with it, Peter reached out and plucked the bottle away.

“I got it,” he said as he squeezed the liquid into his hand and reached behind. They’d only been this intimate a few times since that first time, and ever since, Mr. Stark had always made a point to be so careful getting him ready. So gentle. So agonizingly slow.

He’d appreciated it then, but this time it was the last thing he wanted. Peter did just enough. Just enough that when he coated Mr. Stark with the excess, it was a tight fit that left him wincing as he lowered himself halfway down.

“You okay?” Mr. Stark breathed.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s good,” Peter said as he lowered himself a little farther. But soon he was at an impasse. Either this would have to be it — and Peter didn’t want this to be it — or he’d have to find some way to alter his position. He glanced upward. If he had his webshooters he could fire two burst at the ceiling and support himself from above as he straightened his legs. But they were in the lab.

Peter smiled as an idea started to form. It would take perfect balance. Or a quick call to Karen, but where was the fun in that? Peter nudged Mr. Stark until he’d moved his arms under Peter’s legs, taking his weight for the second it took him to shift backward, placing his hands behind him as he leaned on the flight controls. 

The ship didn’t so much as tremble as Peter lowered himself completely onto Mr. Stark. 

“God,” Mr. Stark moaned. Peter closed his eyes and let the sensations wash over him. He felt powerful riding Mr. Stark, controlling the pace, the depth, the everything except…

Warm drops of liquid landed on his cock and drizzled down. He forced his eyes open and saw Mr. Stark, his hand held up and dripping with the lube. He clenched his fist once before giving Peter a sly wink, grasping him and beginning to stroke. 

For a second, Peter thought he might die right then and there. Mr. Stark didn’t touch him like that. Not since he'd lost control in the lab. Even in those times when they had to move beyond handies and blowjobs, it was the line he wouldn’t cross. Peter hadn’t minded, because Mr. Stark seemed to know about a hundred other places and ways to touch his body that left him a quivering mess at the end, but this was something else.

Peter couldn’t hold back a whimper as Mr. Stark worked him, hot and slick and wonderful. He couldn’t help himself, adapting his movements to include an easy thrust each time he came back down. Maybe it was the angle or the depth or Mr. Stark’s hand or his voice as he slurred words and moans together, but Peter could feel his entire body tensing. His chest was tight, his toes dug into the seat and for a moment it reminded him of an old set of swings and the way he used to twist and turn, winding the chain around itself until he couldn’t move and his feet barely touched the ground before he let go in a dizzying moment of pure joy as the universe sped around him faster and faster. He thought he felt Mr. Stark come, but Peter was still unraveling, a piece of his mind on a playground, waiting for that perfect moment just after equilibrium, that microsecond of time when speed and force take straightened chains and keep moving, whipping around with a gut-wrenching jerk.

When Peter came, the entire ship shuddered around them before he pitched forward. He landed with his face buried against Mr. Stark’s neck, tasting the salt of his skin and sweat, overwhelmed by the wet stickiness between them and unable to hear a thing over his own heartbeat. The words were out of his mouth in a whisper before he could stop them.

_”I love you.”_


	12. You Always Hurt The Ones You Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What makes Tony tick?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **THIS NOTE IS IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ IT:** So, this went longer than I expected and long story short, it's going to take one more chapter to finish up. So, surprise! We’re not done yet! But mostly, I feel like I’m really asking for your trust here, and I’ll try very hard not to break it. After so much time with Peter, I always intended for the finale to give a look at Tony's perspective. But I realize now I didn’t tag for that, so I hope that’s not a jarring thing for anybody. Also one element that was going to be just a passing thought turned into a full-on flashback to Tony’s teenage years, including a sexuality-related fight with Howard in the 80s. But if that’s something you can’t deal with right now, I totally get it. That segment is in blockquote format if you want to skim or skip it. Again, sorry for the tag situation (btw, if you have suggestions for tags you think this story should have, don’t hesitate to let me know).

_“I love you”_

The words hit Tony like ice water. He’d almost missed them, and might have if it weren’t for the kid’s hasty reversal.

_"That. I loved that."_

Tony breathed deeply and pretended like he hadn’t heard, but the words stuck with him, nestled in the back of his brain for days. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he found Peter in the med bay and took a seat opposite him at the large metal table.

“Hey, kid. We need to talk.”

“Yeah?” Peter looked up from the tablet he’d been scrolling through. “What’s up?”

“It’s about … what you said the last time we were … you know,” He made a hand gesture that made Peter look away with a slight tinge to his cheeks.

“Yeah,” he said quickly. “Yeah, it was great. I mean, it’d been good before but that was something else. I loved it.”

“That’s not what you said.”

Peter’s eyes narrowed.

“Yes it is.”

“Pete, I heard you say that you loved me.”

“Slip of the tongue,” Peter said, his voice low and just to the left of hard. “I was a little distracted.” There was something different about the way his fingers rested on the table, and Tony was almost sure they were sticking the same way anyone else might ball their hands into fists.

_"None of this would have happened if you just listened to me!"_

The memory slammed into Tony’s brain with so much force he could smell the salt of the Atlantic. Peter was cornered. Called out. Angry about it. Tony recognized it, because when things got bad, he was the same way. Common sense might have said to abort. Leave the lab and deal with this another day, if ever.

“I don’t believe you,” Tony said, keeping his voice neutral.

And there it was. Peter’s nostrils flared as he stood up and stepped back (fingers did stick a little, he couldn’t help but note).

“Oh, so now you know me better than I do?” Peter said. His voice was practically a shout. “You think that just because…because…because _what_  you think you understand anything about me?” Peter was fuming when he turned away and Tony’s first instinct was to get in his face and push right back, but how had that worked out before? Instead, he leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath through his nose and bit his tongue. Literally.

And a moment later, Peter’s shoulders slumped. He turned his head to the side, watching Tony from the corner of an eye. “What if,” he began softly. “What if I did say it? I mean, what if I meant it, even if I didn’t mean to say it?”

“Well, that’s something we need to talk about.”

“But why?” Peter practically whined as he came back to the table and leaned across, reaching his hands out almost like he wanted to grab Tony’s but stopping halfway there. “Why can’t we just keep going and be happy?”

“I mean, here, now, okay,” Tony said, “But play it through, Pete. What happens next? What happens when the pollen’s worn off, if it hasn’t already? When we get home? I’ve said from the start that none of this was a good idea.”

“But what if we could make it work?”

Tony pinched his nose and squeezed his eyes shut before shaking his head and continuing.

“Okay. Say we give it our all and _somehow_  everything magically just works. Look at us. Look at the lives we live. Chances are I’m dead before you’re 30. I know that seems like a long way away now, but trust me, it's not. Is that really a roller coaster you want to be on?”

“What makes you think I’m not already?”

Tony cocked his head and squinted at Peter. “What?”

“Mr. Stark, normal people don’t accept multi-million dollar presents. They don’t fly to Berlin to fight with superheroes or chase after a space ship just because some guy cosplaying as a tin can tells them to. I think…I think I’ve al-”

“Peter-”

“Why can’t it work?”

“For all of the reasons it couldn’t before!” Tony exclaimed. “Kid-”

Peter’s hand smacked the table.

“I. AM NOT. A CHILD.”

“But you ARE,” Tony said, pointing two fingers directly at Peter’s chest. “From my perspective you are an INFANT-”

“Mr. Stark-”

“See! You can’t even use my name! It’s always ‘Mr. Stark’ like I’m some sort of 8th-grade science teacher!” Tony was on a roll now. He couldn’t stop himself as he rose to his feet, even as Peter followed suit. “You think you know what a relationship is? You think you know what love is? You’re just a kid. You know less than zero! I mean, fuck, how long ago was it that you were all “~oh, I kind of liked kissing this girl for the first time~” but now all of a sudden you want a picket fence with ME?” Tony snorted and shook his head. “Get over it, Peter. Because before you know it, we’ll be home. You’ll go back to your high school student life, I’ll go back to Pepper and all of THIS,” he waved his hands around the med bay, “will be a bad memory.”

Peter’s arms were crossed tightly against his body. He shuffled a little on his feet, like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to stay or go or mop the floor with Tony’s face, but in the end he settled for words.

“You sure about that?” he said. His voice was loud but strained, like he was doing everything in his power not to explode. “Hmm? Did you forget what happened on Titan? Did you think it was just a special show for us?” Peter breathed in through his nose. “Because I don’t think it was. But here’s the thing, _Mr. Stark_ , when we get home, my school’s huge. I know a ton of people and most of us even get along. If May’s gone? If Ned’s gone? I’ll still have people to turn to.” Peter’s lips curled into a scowl. “If Iron Patriot’s gone? If Miss Potts is _ash_? You’ll just be sad and alone because you pushed away everyone else who ever cared about you.”

Oh, that was it. Tony slammed his hands down on the table, leaned forward, and fixed Peter with a hard glare that was returned three-fold. A buzz in his ears, almost like a siren drowned out all of his thoughts except for the _goddamnfuckinglittleshitKID_ that died in the back of his throat before ever making a sound.

Peter broke first, shaking his head and wrinkling his nose as he started to walk away.

“Where are you going?” Tony said firmly, forcefully.

“To the cockpit,” Peter spat as he flung the door open. “Yell if you need your dick sucked.” The door slammed, and he was gone.

Tony breathed heavily through his nose. The buzzing in his ears grew louder. Was this a pollen thing? Jesus Fuck Christ, he hoped not, and as he forced his body to move, to turn around the room, he realized it was just good old fashioned fury. He hated that pollen. He hated the room that had become Peter’s domain. He hated the table where-

Tony’s arm shot out, lifted an edge of the table and let it slam back down. The tablet tumbled off the edge with a crash and a crunch and Tony didn’t need to see it to know it was done for. But something about the sound cleared his mind enough for him to realize he needed to get out of there. Get somewhere safer. Somewhere he could think.

The engine room. The med bay may scream Peter Parker from every inch of it, but the engine room was _his_. Surely there he could find something to fix.

Or something to break and then fix.

* * *

 

Tony lost track of how long he was in the engine room. He loosened and tightened every nut, bolt and screw in the place, ran system diagnostics twice, and when everything came up normal he disassembled and reassembled every spare component they had until he could do it blindfolded and his fingers were stiff. And it all amounted to nothing, because in the end, he was still sitting on the catwalk, legs dangling above the machinery below, arms and forehead resting on the railing, absolutely exhausted and still mad as hell.

_"It’s always the people we love the most who make us the angriest.”_

“What?” Tony looked up and his eyes had already scanned half the room before he realized it was all in his head, a distant memory bubbling its way to the surface of his brain. God, he knew where it was coming from. He knew he didn’t want it. But he also knew he was powerless to stop it. It was just the curse of his big stupidly genius brain.

He was 19 and home on break when his father called him into the study. He could still see Howard sitting at his desk. Shuffling through papers and folders. He wasn’t reading them. He wasn’t sorting them. He was just shuffling them back and forth, waiting for Tony. This memory, though long absent now, had been a steady staple in the back of his mind for months after, and he’d never noticed that detail or the way Howard’s hands shook just a little.

 

 

> “You rang?” Tony said dramatically as he flopped into a chair. Howard’s hands passed over the folders before landing on a newspaper.
> 
> “Take a look at this Tony, and tell me where you see your name,” he said as he slid a section across the desk. Tony sat up a little straighter and scanned the pages. Cold war, cold war, cold war. AIDS quilt. Vigilantes. Broadway premiere…
> 
> “Uh, I’m not in this, Pop.”
> 
> “No. No, you’re not,” Howard said. He picked up a folder and rifled through its contents. “Being who you are … well, me being who I am … comes with certain privileges. Contacts are made. Relationships are formed. Money is spent,” Howard’s voice got a little less measured with each phrase. A little louder. “And because of that … Because Mr. Bushkin over at the Daily Globe owed me a favor, _this_  package went to me instead of to print!” Howard threw the folder at Tony, who could only watch as a dozen photographs fluttered to the floor.
> 
> Tony picked one up.
> 
> It was from a couple nights before at a smoky club with too much neon. A curly-haired brunette girl was under one arm and his other arm snaked around the waist of a leather and denim-clad Billy Idol wannabe with a platinum blond mullet, dangling earring and just the barest hint of beard starting to fill in. Picture-Tony just stared at him, glassy-eyed and grinning. Tony didn’t have to spend long looking at the other photos to show their progression from drinking at the bar to dancing and grinding against one another. And then there was the real coup de grace: One image of them all at a booth, a little blurry but not so much he couldn’t make out his hand up the Punk Rock Princess’s skirt or Wannabe Billy’s tongue down his throat.
> 
> Tony gulped before gathering up the photos, standing and adopting his best jaunty grin.
> 
> “Huh,” he said. “Nice work. Can I keep?”
> 
> “This isn’t a joke, Tony,” Howard said.
> 
> “It’s just a few photographs-”
> 
> “It’s not just photos!” Howard said as he flipped open another folder, revealing a stapled stack of paper a quarter of inch thick. “Jamie Brock tells a very colorful story about your exploits over the last year.”
> 
> “Who cares?” Tony said. “It’s the Daily Globe! That rag’s even worse than the Bugle!”
> 
> “Do you know who buys missiles and guns and armor?” Howard said. “It’s not the bleeding heart doves of San Francisco, that’s for damn sure! Do you know what this could do to the company?! To say nothing of-” Howard stopped himself short and looked away with tight lips.
> 
> “Oh, what? Are you afraid the big bad military boys are going to find out you got a part-time faggy son?” He was angry and the filter between his brain and his mouth disintegrated. “Are you honestly going to tell me you and your precious Captain America never got a little unf-” his hips thrust to the left, “unf!” to the right, “AH!” Straight ahead.
> 
> The newspaper in Howard’s hand slapped down onto the desk with a thwap that reverberated through the room as Howard stood up, leaned over and stared Tony down with the coldest, hardest gaze he’d ever given. The muscles in the back of his jaw clenched and unclenched until he straightened, turned away and bowed his head.
> 
> Tony stared at the back of his neck for a moment before tossing the pictures back onto the desk.
> 
> “Good chat, Dad, thanks.” Tony was halfway out the office when Howard spoke.
> 
> “Anthony.”
> 
> Tony turned around. Howard hardly ever called him Anthony.
> 
> “I give you a lot of lenience,” Howard said. “I never wanted to stifle…” his words trailed off as he turned back around to face Tony. “I don’t care about the girls,” he continued. “I don’t care about the parties or the booze, or the money you throw away like candy, but this-” he jammed a finger down smack in the middle of Billy’s face. “This ends now. End it now.”
> 
> “Or what?”
> 
> “Or maybe I’ll be the bastard you already think I am.” For a second they just stared at each other before Howard broke eye contact, sat down and went back to shuffling — still not sorting, still not reading or filing — all the paperwork on his desk. “That’s all I had to say,” he said. “You can go now.”
> 
> Tony stormed out of office and down to his workshop. A few wrenches may have gone flying before he settled down at a bench. He was fiddling with a circuit board when he heard the door open. There was only one other person who had the key.
> 
> “It’s always the people we love the most who make us the angriest.”
> 
> “Exactly who loves who in this situation,” Tony said without looking up as his mother closed the door and set a cup of green tea down next to him.
> 
> “Your father loves you, Tony,” Maria said.
> 
> “He loves his company.”
> 
> “He wants the company to be big and strong for you,” she countered. “Because he knows he won’t be here forever and he doesn’t want you to have to worry about running it or expenses or contracts. He just wants you be able to build and create and do the amazing things that you do. Because you amaze him every day. You have since the moment you were born.”
> 
> “Yeah? Well, he’s got a funny way of showing it.”
> 
> “Well, that’s because he’s dumber than a box of hair when it comes to emotions and feelings, but it doesn’t mean they’re not there.”
> 
> Tony snorted, tried not to choke on his tea, and set the circuit board down. She always knew how to make him laugh.
> 
> “He worries about you, too.”
> 
> “Why?”
> 
> “Tony,” Maria said, her voice not quite disbelieving. “You don’t have to pay attention to the news to know what’s going on with…” she trailed off. “It’s not just the company. He wants you to be safe and strong and healthy, too. Of course, his bar for healthy is soaked in whiskey and red meat, so maybe aim a little higher for me, please. And promise to be careful.”
> 
> He nodded and closed his eyes as her fingers ran across the back of his neck before she turned to go.
> 
> “Mom?”
> 
> “Yes, darling?”
> 
> “You saw the pictures?”
> 
> “I did.”
> 
> “Do you wish I weren’t … I mean … Do you wish I were different?”
> 
> Maria walked back to him, wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek.
> 
> “My love, all I ever wish is for you to be happy. Whatever that means for you.”

Happy. Tony had spent a lot of time trying to figure out what that was. It was robots and computers and fast cars. It was parties and getting off and spectacle. Happiness, he’d realized then, was being unburdened. People tried to give Tony a lot of labels. Sum him up in a nutshell. The most polite had probably been futurist. A kid with his head at least 15 years ahead of everyone else, whipping up things they could only dream of. But if anyone ever asked him, he’d say he was at least 50 percent realist.

The unburdened lifestyle didn’t come cheap. Adoring crowds who couldn’t wait to get him out of his clothes weren’t carrying torches for the mad scientist building things out of disassembled toasters and broken TVs in the back of a van.

So, in that moment, he’d closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair and remembered what it had been like in that booth with warm, wet cotton in one hand and a fistful of bleached hair in the other. He remembered Billy’s taste. The burning scent of too much Drakkar Noir. The feel of his cock, already hard against Tony’s leg.

And then he put it away. Left it buried in a shoe box full of porn and toys in a dark corner of his closet. And for years, decades even, that worked for him. He buried himself in work; he drowned himself in a bottle; he got tangled up in more women’s bedsheets than he could count.

And 90 percent of the time, if anyone asked, he’d say he was happy. He was unburdened.

Then he was incapacitated by his own weaponry, locked in a cave for three months and left to build his own lifeline. And a few weeks later, sitting in a chair in his lab trying to reach a wire in his chest, that was when he realized his unburdened life had become unmoored. He had no family. His only friends in the world were people he either paid or worked with, and one of them ended up a black market arms-dealing, company-stealing asshole of the highest order, so maybe he didn’t even count.

Tony was living, but he wasn’t alive. And he most definitely wasn’t happy.

But then, just like his Iron suits, Tony started to upgrade himself. His mind was on fire. He wasn’t just fucking around, he was falling in love. He was saving the goddamn world with heroes - with a family — that brought an unbridled joy that was only rivaled by the unmitigated pain when it all broke apart.

Except there was (almost) always Pepper. There was (almost) always Rhodey.

And then there was Peter. Peter, who’s intelligence and ingenuity astounded him far more than his spider-powered abilities. Peter, who had a big heart to match his big brain. Peter, who confounded him on a near daily basis.

Peter, who he’d never meant to hurt.

Tony sighed and rubbed at his eyes. It had to be the pollen, right? The pollen that took 30 years of repression and exploded it all over the ship. The pollen that made his body tingle at the sight of Peter and, at its height, disabled all logic and reason and left him just wanting to touch and taste and take.

Except, the pollen didn’t make him care about Peter’s life over his own. The pollen didn’t quiet his everything as Peter — far braver than Tony had ever been — declared a truth that Tony had spent a fair chunk of his life locking away. The pollen didn’t make him see red when he popped off at the mouth.

And it wasn’t the pollen that broke his heart when he realized the only good thing he knew for certain he still had in the universe didn’t so much fade away as storm out on him.

What to do? He was pondering his options when the hum of one of the machines stopped with a clang and the overhead lights faded to near nothingness. Jesus, how long had he been down here? Had they really entered the third stage of Karen’s night light program without him noticing? It’d be pushing midnight Earth time, and whatever he was going to do, it would have to wait until tomorrow.

Tony rose, stretched and tried to ignore the creaking in his bones as he yawned and made his way to the bedroom. He expected to find the second bed pulled down from the wall with Peter nestled under half a dozen blankets.

But Peter wasn’t there. He checked the bathroom, the dining area, he even peeked into the med bay, craning his neck from a safe distance in the hallway. Nothing. Tony finally found him in the cockpit — right where he said he’d be, ironically. It was dark and quiet. Peter was on the lowest level, fully clothed and wrapped in a thin blanket in one of the seats.

“Peter?”

Peter’s breath was slow and measured. Asleep, or nearly so, Tony realized as he approached. He laid a hand on his shoulder and gave a light squeeze.

“Hey, Pete.”

Peter inhaled sharply as his eyes blinked open.

“Mr. Stark?” He turned his head to look at him. “Did you need…” there was something painfully disconnected, scientific even, in his voice as his gaze traveled down Tony’s body, landing briefly at his pelvis before finding his eyes again. “Do you need something?”

“No. No, nothing like that,” Tony’s words caught in his throat. “I just…go to bed, Peter.”

Peter frowned at him and gestured around the area.

“What’s it look like I’m doing?”

“Not…I mean in bed. You’ll freeze out here.”

Peter yawned.

“It’ll be fine. I got used to it.”

“Look, Pete,” Tony said, “I’m the asshole, okay. I get it. Go to bed; I’ll sleep out here.”

“But you’re so old,” Peter said flatly. “Your ancient joints wouldn’t make it through the night. And there’s no Life Alert in space,” Peter yawned as he jostled in his seat, doing the best he could to turn away from Tony and onto his side in the confined space.

Tony nodded and pulled his hand away, retreating back to the main level and the bedroom. But the room didn’t feel right without Peter in it. He tried to sleep. He tossed and he turned, and he even counted sheep, but everything was just _wrong_. He couldn’t stand it, and eventually tossed the blanket away, grabbed a sheet and headed back to the cockpit.

He stayed on the top level, two tiers up from Peter. Wrapping the sheet around himself, he settled into a chair and propped his feet up on the railing. It wasn’t the most comfortable situation, but he’d once fallen asleep on a bar stool, hunched over a work bench with a half melted motherboard digging into his face. So it could have been worse. And knowing Peter was nearby eased his mind as the steady rise and fall of his breaths lulled Tony to sleep.

That night he dreamed of smoky clubs and flash bulbs, loud music and dancers disappearing into dust.

* * *

 

Tony woke the next morning with a crick in his neck and stiff legs he actually had to grab at the knee and lift out of the railing. _Everything_  cracked when he stood and stretched.

Peter wasn’t in the cockpit anymore. He wasn’t in the mess, though Tony was relieved to find an energy bar waiting for him on the table. He’d barely eaten anything the day before and their supplies were starting to run low, so his general feeling of munchiness had grown to full blown hunger by the time he ripped off the foil and took a bite.

After devouring the food, he continued his walk through the ship. He didn’t see Peter anywhere, but he was certain he heard him knocking around from time to time, always just out of sight and gone by the time Tony got there. He could have called out for him. Hell, he probably could have looked up and found him lounging on the ceiling right above his head, but Tony had no idea what he’d say if he did, and Peter clearly and understandably didn’t want to talk to him, anyway.

So Tony did what he always did when life got uncomfortable: He retreated to his space. His bedroom, his workshop, his lab and now his engine room. Along the way, he stopped for a quick shower and a shave and a few of the yoga poses and stretches he could remember before grabbing a couple more energy bars and a spare tablet and settling in amid the thrums and hums that kept the ship running.

Powering on the tablet, Tony pulled up schematics for Peter’s suit and copied the file, changing the name from “A17 I.S. Mark 1v5 (copy)” to “Iron Spider Mark 2v1.” Clearly it needed more insulation and protocols for electrical overloads. There were things that could come out to help streamline the new code. After all, 576 web combinations was probably overkill. Ditto Instant Kill, for that matter.

It had been years since Tony had designed a suit and operating system upgrade without the bells and whistles of his lab. Sure, if he could do it on tissue-thin paper held down by rocks, he could do it on a space tablet, too, but it was more time consuming than if he’d had the holograms and horsepower of his set up back home. It took the entire day, which at least was a nice distraction from the way he and Peter were still steadfastly avoiding each other. It wasn’t until the lights dimmed again that Tony amended “Iron Spider Mark 2v3” to “Iron Spider Mark 2 (final)” and powered down the tablet for the night.

He walked through the ship again. Peter wasn’t in the cockpit or the kitchen or the bathroom or the med lab. He wasn’t sticking to the ceiling in the corridor, either. But he was curled up in on the smaller bed in their room. There was a part of Tony wanted to crawl in next to him, or at the very least fall into the larger bed to watch him sleep from a safer distance. But even though the room felt right again, there was still something wrong.

“Goodnight, Peter,” Tony whispered as he grabbed a pillow and a thicker blanket and headed back to the cockpit. As he threw himself into a seat and pushed his back into it until it reclined an almost useless half inch, Tony thought maybe he could have used some of the day ripping apart and reassembling the seats for easier sleeping. But as he drifted off again, legs stretched out but still firmly on the floor, he decided he’d probably made the right call. At least, the more deserving one.

On this night, his dreams were fleeting. Images of his father and mother. Steve and the rest of the Avengers. Fury, Hill and even Coulson appeared long enough to be noticed but not long enough to be memorable. It wasn’t until he was walking through the penthouse with Pepper under one arm and Peter under the other, all smiles as they sat down to breakfast, that anything seemed real. Almost too real. He could smell the bacon and feel the chair digging into his back…

Tony opened his eyes and breathed deeply. The penthouse was gone. The smell of bacon — or maybe something like it — wasn’t.

“Hey.”

Tony glanced to his left and found a tin plate with three strips of meat and a glob of _something_  at eye level. His gaze moved past the plate, up an arm and landed on Peter’s face, looking down at him before glancing away.

“The fauxmeal got a little overdone,” he said. “And I’m sorry for being such a dick.”


	13. Who We Are

Tony stared out into the star field and looked over the coordinates.

“Karen, are you sure we’re going the right way?”

“Yes, Mr. Stark. We’re going the right way.”

Tony looked out the window again. It seemed like there should be more. “You’re sure?”

“Mr. Stark, are you a super computer connected to three starships worth of celestial navigation?”

“Not right now, I’m not,” Tony said with a smile. Karen’s programming allowed her to pick up on emotional cues and respond accordingly with learned inflections. Between him and Peter, Tony wondered which was more responsible for her random bits of sass.

“We’re going the right way.”

“Okay, okay,” Tony said. “Where’s Peter?”

“In the medical bay.”

Tony glanced up sharply. “Is he hurt?” They’d been on the ship for so long that Peter had read everything twice over and they’d exhausted most of the supplies. There really wasn’t anything left for him to learn or make.

“He doesn’t appear to be.”

Tony nodded and turned back to the screen. He worried about Peter. Their fight hadn’t lasted long and they’d worked themselves back to a good place, but over the last few days, as Earth drew nearer, he could feel Peter withdrawing, his general chatterbox demeanor replaced with something quieter. More sullen.

“There’s 10 minutes left on your timer,” Karen said.

“Great, thanks.” Tony gave one last look at the navigation and headed for the dining area, pausing briefly to run his hand across the table. It was right there that they’d begun to fix things.

> “The fauxmeal got a little overdone,” Peter said. “And I’m sorry for being such a dick.” With his free hand, he reached down and pulled Tony from the chair. It didn’t sound like a semi was running over bubble wrap this time, Tony noted as they made their way through the ship and settled in at the table.
> 
> “Thought we were out of the fresh stuff,” Tony said around a mouthful of the not-bacon.
> 
> “I may have saved some stuff back in the freezer,” Peter said sheepishly. “Kind of a ‘break glass in case of emergency’ situation. There’s a little of the purple fruit back there, too.”
> 
> “Huh. Good thinking.”
> 
> For a moment, they were silent. The only sounds filling the room were their forks scraping across plates and the workings of the ship. Peter spoke first.
> 
> “I didn’t mean a…a lot of what I said,” he said softly. “And I shouldn’t have said what I did about Miss Potts. You don’t put things like that out into the world.”
> 
> “It’s okay.”
> 
> “It’s not.”
> 
> “You were angry, Pete. I’ve been there, and I’ve said worse for less. Hell, I was out of line, too. And I’m sorry for making you feel the way I did.” Peter looked away. “I mean it. You’re not …. Listen, Peter. You are amazing. You are spectacular, and the things you do absolutely astonish me. And anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is an idiot. Present company included.”
> 
> Peter smiled for what may have been the first time in two days and took a giant bite of the glue-like substance he insisted was food.
> 
> “Mr. Stark, how are you feeling?” he finally asked.
> 
> “You know you can call me Tony right?”
> 
> “Yeah but it…it just feels weird.”
> 
> “Out of everything that’s happened since we met, that’s what feels weird to you?” Peter looked away with just the slightest tinge of pink rushing to his ears. “But you know, it’s fine. We’re fine. I’m fine. A little stiff. You were right about those flight chairs.”
> 
> “Told you,” Peter said, turning back with a barely there smile. “But I was actually asking about the pollen. We’re not that far from home, and just…how are you?”
> 
> “Oh. I mean, I think I’m fine. I haven’t felt it since the last time, but you know…”
> 
> “It was getting harder to tell,” Peter finished. “I’ve actually got a theory about that.”
> 
> “Yeah?”
> 
> “Yeah, I think maybe you’re building up a resistance to it. That might explain why it seems like there’s even more time between…outbreaks, I guess…and why it seems like they hit harder. It’s not that the pollen isn’t reactivating, you’re just not symptomatic until...”
> 
> “Until there’s enough there I just wanna…”
> 
> “Yeah. I wish we still had some of that stuff.”
> 
> Early into the situation, Peter had been doing regular blood draws to try to measure the pollen and predict what Tony would need and when. But something about its makeup confused the sensors. It took a third catalyst to really make it stand out in his blood, and they’d burned through most of it before realizing there were just too many variables. To get accurate estimations, they’d have to make a science project out of … well, treatments were probably the most diplomatic way to put it … and that just wasn’t something Tony had been prepared to entertain. So instead, they periodically measured to make sure everything was still headed in the right direction. The last chance they were able to test, the pollen concentration was low enough that their last time could well have been the last time.
> 
> _And what a time it was._  The thought was in Tony’s head before he could even process it, definitely before he could stop it or the reminder of how Peter felt around him. How his cock felt hard and slick in his hand-
> 
> Tony squeezed his thumbnail into the pad of his middle finger, and the sharpness of it was just enough to cut that line of thinking off in its tracks. Peter was watching him, he realized, waiting for a response. Well shit. _Pollen, resistance, measurements, catalyst_ , there it was.
> 
> “Yeah,” Tony said. “Yeah, that’s too bad. I guess we’ll just have to wait for time to tell.”
> 
> Peter nodded and shifted his food around his plate like he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite figure out how.
> 
> “What’s on your mind, Peter?”
> 
> “I was just thinking … if the pollen’s not all gone, if you need another go … could we maybe … switch? Or something?”
> 
> “Switch?” Tony frowned for a second before- “oh. You want to…”
> 
> Peter’s cheeks flushed, he looked away and Tony wasn’t aware ears could turn quite that shade of red.
> 
> “Forget it,” he said. “It’s stupid. Probably wouldn’t even help you anyway. Don’t-”
> 
> “Okay.”
> 
> “O-okay?”
> 
> “Sure, why not. I mean, hell, you’ve earned it.”
> 
> For a second Peter just stared at him, his mouth working like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to smile or drop his jaw to the floor.
> 
> “Okay,” he said and quickly followed it up, “but I get it doesn’t, it doesn’t mean any…it’s just for the experience, so I’m not such a dork when it happens for real-”
> 
> “Right. Get you all sorted out and Frat Boy Jeff won’t know what hit him.”
> 
> Peter did smile then, just slightly, as he glanced down and away.
> 
> “Speaking of,” Tony continued. “You ever see an old movie called ‘Animal House’?”
> 
> “Huh-uh.”
> 
> Tony cocked his head and thought about it for a moment.
> 
> “Yeah, I guess it’s not really the sort of movie you watch with the folks.”  
>    
> 

“Mr. Stark, your timer is finished,” Karen said over the speaker, pulling Tony from his thoughts. He went to the small oven and pulled out a dish. It smelled okay. It looked like an actual thing that could exist in the universe. Maybe it would cheer Peter up.

“Still in the med bay?”

“Yep.”

Tony gave the dish time to cool, then kept it low and behind his back as he walked through the ship and entered the med bay. Peter was sitting in a corner, his back against the wall, head down. Down? He was on the ceiling, so up and down seemed a little relative.

“Hey, Ki-” Tony stopped, masked his stutter in a cough and continued. “Hey, Pete! Why so glum up there?” Peter glanced at him, almost like he hadn’t even heard Tony enter the room.

“Oh, hey, Mr. Stark.”

“Hey. You okay up there?”

“Yeah. Yeah, no, I was just thinking about Aunt May.”

“I’m sure…I’m sure she’s fine.”

“Oh, I know she is,” Peter answered. “I can’t let myself think she’s not. So she’s gotta be. But if she’s there, and I’m not?” Peter swallowed. “I was supposed to be on a bus. And when I didn’t … she knows about Spider-Man. I mean, she knows all that, but when I didn’t come home she must have been so worried. And now I just can’t stop thinking … she must think I’m dead. I’m dust, and I was running late that morning and barely even said goodbye. She must be so sad. Today especially.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, rubbing at his face. “It’s my birthday today.”

“Ahhh. Yeah, I know.” Tony held his arm out, kitchen creation in hand. Peter cocked his head at it before releasing from the ceiling, flipping gracefully in midair and landing in front of him.

“Did you make me a birthday cake?”

“Well, ‘cake’ might be too strong a word,” Tony said as he handed the small round pan to Peter. “It’s basically rehydrated energy bars, oatmeal and the last of that fruit you like.”

Peter popped the cake out of the pan and broke it in half with a smile, handing a piece back to Tony before taking a bite. He closed his eyes as he chewed and it was almost palpable the way the tension eased off him.

“It’s so good,” he said around a mouthful of cake. Tony cautiously nibbled a piece of his half.

It was not good. It was not good at all.

“You know,” Tony said, plopping his half back into Peter’s hands, “your taste is really making me question your aunt’s cooking prowess.”

“You had the date loaf,” Peter said, his voice marginally clearer before taking another bite.

“I did. I did have that date loaf, and that was an experience.”

Peter grinned. An honest to god grin with a laugh attached to the end of it and Tony couldn’t help but smile back.

“No one likes the date loaf,” Peter said. “But seriously,” he held up the cake. “Thank you.”

“Oh, we’re not done yet.” Tony dropped his hands onto Peter’s shoulders and steered him out of the med bay. “Close your eyes.”

“ _Close my eyes_? What exactly do you think you’ve been hiding on this ship?”

“All right, fine. We’ll do it the hard way.” Tony planted his elbows on Peter’s shoulders and placed his hands over his eyes. “Watch your step,” he said as they entered the flight cabin and made their way to the lowest level. Karen hadn’t been wrong.

“Okay,” Peter said. “We’re in the flight cabin. Gee, Mr. Stark, I’ve never been here before-” Tony moved his hands and stepped away, leaning against one of the seats.

Awestruck was probably a good word for it. The last time Tony had seen Peter look like this was after Berlin, in the limo, when Tony barreled through the gifting of the onesie upgrade. Stunned silence, slack-jawed and big eyed. Tony watched him step closer to the window. Watched him reach a hand out to touch the glass as greens and oranges and pinks reflected off his skin.

“What is this?”

“That,” Tony said, “is a nebula. Mostly space dust and gas,” A light flashed from somewhere deep within. “But way in there somewhere is a new star being born. Or maybe an old star dying, I can never remember.” Peter closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, there was something different about him as he stared deep into space, and Tony found himself wondering not for the first time just what his abilities allowed for. “Pretty enough for you?”

“It’s beautiful.” Peter blinked and shook his head. “Did it put us off course, though?”

“About a half day. Figured it was worth it,” Tony said. “And that we could probably find a way to pass the time, if you still want to.” Peter glanced sharply at him, eyes wide.

“You mean like…is it the pollen?”

Tony shrugged his shoulders. He tried to look at Peter’s face. Gauge his reaction. But he found his eyes refused to move from his own feet as one toe drew a lazy pattern on the ship’s flooring. And then Peter was next to him. His arms tensed and moved like he wanted to reach out and touch Tony, but he just couldn’t quite convince himself to get there.

“I know it…I mean, I heard you before,” Peter began, stopping and stuttering and starting again trying to make sure Tony knew he understood. That he didn’t expect the picket fence or the dog or the 2.5 adopted kids from 3 different countries. He knew that it was just…

Messy. God, it was just so fucking messy.

Tony cut Peter off in the middle of his fourth or fifth try to spit out a sentence, tilted his head and went in for a kiss.

* * *

They left the cockpit behind. Turned the controls over to Karen and wound up in the bedroom, watching the last wisps of color fade from the small window. Peter had withdrawn again. He’d been surprised but eager for Tony’s kiss, but now they were here and the bed was there and the enormity of what Peter had asked lay between them. It didn’t surprise Tony at all that he was nervous.

“You know, Pete, we don’t have to if you don’t want to. If you do, that’s fine. I’m fine. But if you don’t, that’s okay, too.”

“No, I do. I do,” Peter stammered. “I just…I don’t know how to start.” He shook his head and looked away. “It’s stupid.”

For a moment, Tony could only stare at him. This was Peter, who had figured out what was wrong with Tony well before Tony had. Who watched over him. Who knew when he needed him and had made all the first moves that Tony couldn’t.

Tony stepped forward, nudged Peter’s face toward his and leaned in.

“Then let me handle it,” he whispered as his lips pressed softly against Peter’s. Residual sweetness from the cake still lingered as Tony’s mouth traveled to Peter’s ear and down his neck. Hands clutched at Tony’s shirt as Peter let out a contented sigh that turned to a whimper as Tony dropped to one knee.

Peter was half hard when Tony took him in his mouth, and there was something intoxicating about the feel of him as he stiffened and grew on Tony’s tongue. Peter’s hands were in his hair, on his face, brushing against his neck. It wasn’t until he lurched forward with a groan that Tony released him and rose to his feet.

“Hold on to some of that; you’ll want it later,” he said with a smile. Peter grinned back at him, all dopey but charged up. They fell into bed awash in kisses and roving hands, hard and hot, only stopping so Peter could reach down and pluck a small bottle of lube from under the bed.

“Full disclosure,” Tony said, “I may have prepped a little ahead of time. Just enough, just in case you didn’t want-”

“Can I, though?” He was so eager.

“Sure.”

Peter smiled, and that was how Tony found himself face first in a pillow, breathing deeply as he talked Peter through opening him up. He moved gently, slow and easy as he stretched and prodded. Tony could feel his entire body relaxing under Peter’s touch. And then he was gone. Tony heard the cap flip, the squirt of the lube, and just the slightest of sighs from Peter as he got himself ready.

And then Peter moved in. Tony couldn’t help but shiver as the head of Peter’s cock moved against his flesh, teasing and rubbing until he pushed through and the whimper Tony had been fighting became a full on moan.

God, it’d been so long. It’d been so long since anyone filled him up like that, hot and pulsing with life. With his hands on Tony’s hips, Peter moved in slow, easy thrusts that matched Tony’s gasps for air. Tony raised up on his elbows, then his hands with heavy groan. One of Peter’s hands slid up his body until it reached Tony’s shoulder, gripping in just the right place for Tony to lean his cheek into it, nuzzling against his fingers.

Peter pulled out just enough to reposition himself. Tony could feel his legs on either side of his as Peter bent over. Their arms and legs tangled together, hands and knees pressed firmly into the bedding, as Peter entered him again. Peter’s lips streaked across Tony’s skin, offering a slight graze of teeth if he moved mid breath. Tony moved his pinky, stroking across one of Peter’s fingers, until he shifted his weight, lacing his fingers between Tony’s. From there, it didn’t take much work at all — just a little more shifting and tugging — for Peter to flatten Tony’s body beneath him, creating as much contact between them as possible as Peter’s thrusts became short nudgings of his hips. They were close enough that Tony could hear the hitch in Peter’s breath with every push and feel the slight tremors that wound through tense muscles.

And then he slowed. He stilled. He pulled back and rolled off of Tony, landing with very little grace next to him before propping himself up against the head board. Tony frowned. That wasn’t the stamina of the Spider-Man he knew, and it didn't take a genius to know Peter hadn’t finished.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Peter said as he rubbed at his ear and wiped sweat from his brow. “I’m fine.”

Tony raised his eyebrows.

“You don’t seem fine.” Tony rolled over onto his side, propping himself up on an elbow. “What’s up? Not liking it?”

“No, it feels good, Mr. Stark,” Peter said quickly. “It feels really good, it’s just…I don’t know.” Peter looked disappointed. A little embarrassed. And he sounded like somebody had just kicked his puppy.

It wasn’t something that Tony understood easily. For the bulk of his experience, feeling good — especially ‘really good’ — had been the whole point. The players may change, the positions may move around, and sometimes there was a little too much booze to remember everything with crystal clarity the next day, but if he got out with even the vaguest recollection of two people feeling good, he deemed it a successful encounter.

But Peter, Tony realized, wasn’t like that. Getting in, getting off and getting out wasn’t what he wanted. No, Peter wanted to touch and kiss and see and _care_. What had taken Tony nearly dying to realize was just who Peter was.

“Hand me that pillow over there,” Tony said. Peter didn’t even look at him when he tossed the spare pillow into his chest. Tony pursed his lips as he rolled onto his back, positioning the cushion beneath his hips. He reached out and laid his fingers on Peter’s arm. “Come here.”

Peter glanced over at him, blinked and shook his head.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t…we don’t have to-”

“Hey, Pete,” Tony said, cutting him off. “If you’d really rather go jerk it in the shower, that’s fine, I get it. No worries. But otherwise? As your own personal sex educator, it’s kind of rude to leave your other half half-fucked. Also, I have a long reputation of being a good lay, so you better be sure before you go tarnishing it, is all I’m saying.”

Peter smiled, and he may as well have been the sun.

“You’re sure?”

“Well, yeah. I’m not splayed out here like a flipped turtle for nothing.” Tony took Peter by the arm and pulled him closer, situating him between his knees.

“It really works like this? For guys, I mean?” Peter said with a frown.

“Really does.”

“Huh. I figured that was just porn or you had to be super acrobatic or something.”

“Nope, normal people, too,” Tony said as he hooked a knee around Peter. “But now I’m imagining all the shenanigans the Cirque du Soleil crew could get up to, and that’s pretty hot. Me, I’ll just try not to break a hip.”

Peter’s eyes went wide.

“Is that…could that-”

“I’m joking, Parker, Christ. Now move up here.” Tony nudged Peter’s elbow, pulling him forward until they were face to face with Peter’s hands pressing into the mattress at Tony’s sides. “How’s that? Better? A little more what you were expecting?” Peter nodded. “Good.” Tony ran the back of his fingers down Peter’s cheek before reaching for the lube next to them. This was the last of it. When the bottle was empty, Tony reached between them, grasping Peter’s cock.

Peter gasped as Tony stroked him. It wasn’t until he started to buck gently in Tony’s hand that he let go. A part of Tony expected Peter to dive right in, but the rest of him should have known better. Peter’s mouth crashed into his, caressing his lips and once parted, exploring from the inside, stroking his tongue over Tony’s like he lived there. It wasn’t until he moved his lips to Tony’s neck that he shifted his weight, reached between them and pushed inside Tony again.

Peter moaned against him.

“Oh, geez,” he gasped. “Mr. Stark it’s so-”

“Right?” Tony said. Peter’s words were lost as he thrust, but Tony knew the feeling. Shared it even, because whatever Peter was doing, whether it has happenstance, luck or something else entirely, was hitting Tony in all the right places. Tony couldn’t help but hold him tight and relish in the sound Peter made as he clenched around him.

Peter’s breath matched his pace, speeding up and slowing down as it felt right, but what struck Tony the most was the look on his face. The slightest flush to his cheeks. Eyes that struggled to hold focus. That smile. It was pure excitement. An exhilaration that came from being young and new and experiencing things for the first time and for a moment Tony envied him. He rose up only slightly, just enough to catch Peter’s mouth with his own, sweep over his teeth and drown in is scent and his taste until Peter broke away with a wince and a whimper.

“Mist…Mr. Stark I’m gonna come. I’m gonna come, do I need to get out?”

God, how he envied him.

“Only if you want to.”

Peter’s mouth dropped open before clicking shut again. He licked his lips and breathed deeply through his nose, and then didn’t breathe at all for what felt like an eternity as his head ducked down and he thrust faster and faster until his body tensed and he exploded with cries of Jesus and God and a whispered Fuck that might have surprised Tony if his own body weren’t on fire, filled with a still throbbing Peter and soaked in a sensation that was everything he’d hoped it would have been all those years ago.

Peter collapsed on Tony’s chest. Every breath shook. His skin was cool and damp, and Tony pulled a blanket over them, hoping his own body heat would warm them both.

“Thank you,” Peter whispered. Tony nodded and kissed his hair, entirely unable to find words for what had just happened. Peter scooted over, rolling off Tony and landing on his side. One hand stayed on Tony’s chest, fingers lightly stroking over the skin that wasn’t numbed by the arc reactor’s absence. His hand dragged downward, over his belly, across his hip and almost to his cock, when Tony laid a hand on his wrist.

“You don’t have to,” he said.

“Mmmm…technically, I think I do,” Peter said. “And maybe I want to. Wouldn’t want to be rude, after all.” He gave half a wink and disappeared under the blanket before Tony could say another word.

Tony closed his eyes. The kid had a mouth on him, that was for sure. And he had no idea where he’d learned to do that thing with his tongue, but for the first time in all these months, Tony felt like he could just lean back and enjoy the wet, hot feel of it. One hand rested on his hip, but the other slid up his abdomen. The pads of Peter’s fingers were heavy, almost magnetic, like he was drawn to something deep within Tony. _Wall-crawling_. The thought was in Tony’s brain in an instant and out almost as fast as Peter’s throat worked around him.

Tony’s eyes rolled back as his breath and heartbeat quickened. One hand reached back, smacking into the head board — fuck, what he wouldn’t do for a little bit of webbing there again. His other reached down, raking through Peter’s hair. Something about it elicited a whine deep in the back of Peter’s throat and that was all it took for Tony’s hips to knock upward with an incoherent grunt that might have had Peter’s name somewhere in there before he collapsed back into the pillows.

Peter re-emerged and curled up next to Tony, head resting on his shoulder.

“Good?”

Stunned silent and spent, all Tony could do was nod.

* * *

Tony watched Peter sleep.

Stretched out on his side, heels knocking into Tony’s ankles, he realized maybe for the first time that Peter was almost as tall as he was. The curves of his arm showcased wiry muscle that couldn’t even begin tell his true strength.

Tony spent so much time trying to protect Peter. To preserve…what?…his innocence? That was ridiculous. Tony’d put the pieces together. He knew about the uncle and the gunshot that changed Peter far more than a spider bite ever could. It didn’t break him though. Not clean in two, at any rate. Maybe that’s why he seemed so young. In a world full of darkness, he clung to the things that made him happy, and it didn’t matter if they were LEGOS or science projects or swinging from rooftop to rooftop. Or an old man in a can.

Peter chose passion over pain, and it absolutely floored Tony. It wasn’t until they were sitting at a table, breezing through the world’s easiest make-up, that Tony realized Peter didn’t need him to protect his present or correct his past. He needed him to guard his future. It was in those moments when Peter looked away with a muttered _stupid_  and a reddening face that Tony realized he was doing far more harm trying to fight whatever was between them than saying yes. That he had a chance to walk Peter through all the doors he’d plowed through so quickly he wound up knocked on his ass and locking himself out from a world of possibility.

So Tony said yes, because he couldn’t say no.

He couldn’t say no. Not to Peter. Not for anything.

Tony reached up, about to flick off the light, when he felt Peter stir.

“Ben?” he mumbled. “No…no, you can’t…”

Sleep was when Peter’s demons appeared the most. Not often, but when they did…Tony could still remember that night when a nightmare full of dust and ash ripped him out of bed. Left him so panicked he couldn’t control his own abilities. He could still feel Peter’s body shaking as he held him for the first time.

“Don’t take…”

“Hey, Pete,” Tony said softly.

“Nononono, Mr. Stark…Mr. Stark don’t go…”

“I’m right here.” He laid a hand on Peter’s arm. The muscle was tight as his whole body clenched.

“Stay with us,” Peter pleaded. “Tony!”

“Peter.” Tony’s voice was firm and just loud enough to shake something loose.

“Huh?” Peter said, his voice still thick with sleep as his body relaxed.

“You were dreaming,” Tony whispered.

“Dream…”

“Yeah, buddy. Everything’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

“Okay,” Peter shifted, not much, just enough that Tony’s arm slid off of Peter’s and wrapped around him, holding him in an easy hug. “G’night M’st’Stark,” he muttered. “Love you.”

Tony squeezed his eyes shut. His head was clear. The pollen was gone. But it had left something else in its wake. He pressed his lips to Peter’s shoulder and held a little tighter as Peter’s hand curled around his own.

“I love you back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. When I started this, I expected it just to be a Five Times fic and maybe 10,000 words. But then it grew and grew, and sometimes it was really hard to write, but your kudos and comments kept me going. Ultimately, I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope you enjoyed this ending as much as I did.


End file.
